'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett, who is facing a lawsuit filed by Chicago city officials, wants the case to be transferred to the federal court from the State court.
Chicago city officials filed a suit against the actor earlier in April in order to recover the costs of the investigations into the hate crime reported by him in January.
The plea to shift the case to the federal court was filed by the actor's representatives on Wednesday.
While submitting the motion, they pointed out that the federal court is the correct place where the case should be investigated because Smollett is a resident of California.
However, the attack happened in Chicago.
Jussie was reportedly attacked by a masked man on January 29. He also complained that the man yelled racial slurs.
However, Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts by the city of Chicago after it was found that he orchestrated the attack.
However, the charges were dropped as he forfeited USD 10,000 and agreed to do some community service.
Meanwhile, a Cook County judge in May agreed to release the case related documents of the actor after several media outlets demanded the reports to be made public.
Till now, a document, video, and audio have been released by the Chicago police department.
( With inputs from ANI )