A grand jury in Chicago has returned a 16-count felony indictment against television actor Jussie Smollett, accusing him of falsely reporting to police that he was the victim of a hate-crime assault, according to court documents on Saturday (AEDT).

Smollett, who is black and openly gay and plays a gay character on the Fox network hip-hop drama Empire, was charged last month in a single-count criminal complaint with lying to police about a supposed racist and homophobic attack by supporters of President Donald Trump.

Neither Smollett’s lawyer nor his spokeswoman could immediately be reached for comment on the latest charges.

At the time he was initially charged, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said that Smollett had paid two brothers $35,000 ($49,600) to stage an assault on him in a hoax orchestrated to somehow further his acting career.

Smollett, 36, was arrested and later released on $100,000 ($141,000) bond two weeks ago in connection with the initial charge against him.

The indictment, returned by a grand jury on Thursday, charges Smollett with 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct alleging that he gave false accounts of an attack on him to police investigators.

A copy of the document was furnished to Reuters by a Cook County Circuit Court clerk.

According to previous police recitations of Smollett’s story, he reported that two masked men approached him on a darkened street on January 29 shouting racial and homophobic slurs, struck him in the face, doused him with an “unknown chemical substance” and wrapped a rope around his neck before they fled.

Smollett also told police, according to authorities, that the attackers had yelled “This is MAGA country,” referring to Mr Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Smollett took himself to a hospital but was not seriously hurt, police had said.

News of the purported assault spread quickly on social media, with many expressing outrage while others suggested the story was fabricated even as Chicago police insisted their detectives were treating the matter seriously.

His lawyers last month said they were conducting a thorough investigation for the purposes of mounting a defence of the actor.

-AAP