Yeah no. A very early report leaked and the police denied making any such statement. Then the official report came in and confirmed the leaks.
What we know so far :
The two nigerians brothers were quickly identified via video and witness evidence
Hundreds of people were interrogated.
They followed the trail through camera, interrogated the cab drivers, got the video out of the cab.
The first thing they did after the crime was hop on a plane to Nigeria to sit there for two weeks.
They got grabbed the day they re-entered and were held for 48H. They started being cooperative at the 47th hour.
According to their attorney, they're not offenders, they're victim. The investigator no longer class them as suspect, but as witness.
They were about to testify in front of a grand jury tuesday, before Jussie Smollett's lawyer called them by arguing that he had evidence to postpone the grand jury.
It turn out they had none. So both testimonies went on grand jury just fine.
They the police asked Jussie to turn himself-in, he did.
They have the phones record of both Jussie and the suspect and they talked right before and right after the attack. Allegedly, Jussie handed his phone with erased phonecall and message, unaware that they already subpoena'd his phone records from his provider.
Source : The official CPD press conference,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nVfV3tnpxs
The police is very officially charging him for staging this whole clusterfuck, not the brothers. Him alone. He is the only suspect. I'm sorry but it goes a "little" further than a 3500$ check.