Chicago, Apr 5 (IANS): The City of Chicago will sue actor Jussie Smollet for not being able to reimburse the investigation costs.

The law department on Thursday announced that Smollett has refused to pay more than $130,000 to reimburse the costs of investigating what authorities say was a staged racist, anti-gay attack against him, reports usatoday.com.

Also, the City of Chicago corporate counsel Ed Siskel sent Smollett a letter a week ago demanding the "Empire" actor to pay up the overtime costs within seven days. But the deadline expired on Thursday evening without Smollett making a payment.

Bill McCaffrey, a city legal department spokesman, issued a statment saying: "Smollett has refused to reimburse the City of Chicago for the cost of police overtime spent investigating his false police report on January 29, 2019.

"The Law Department is now drafting a civil complaint that will be filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Once it is filed, the Law Department will send a courtesy copy of the complaint to Smollett's Los Angeles-based legal team."

Last month, all charges against Smollett, who had been accused of staging a hate crime against himself, were dropped by the Chicago court.