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Jussie Smollett’s special treatment began long before prosecutors’ stunning call to drop the case — and included a private jail cell and a mere 16 hours of lightweight community service.

“This looks like because he’s an actor, a person of influence, he got treated differently than anybody else,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Emanuel — who on Tuesday blasted the handling of the case as a “whitewash of justice” — was remarking on the head-scratching decision to abandon the 16-count felony case against the star of TV’s “Empire.”

But the assessment could be extended to a series of seemingly sweetheart concessions Smollett, 36, received from the moment he surrendered for questioning in the wee hours of Feb. 21.

“At no point while in the 001st [Police] District, was Smollett handcuffed, placed in a cell or subjected to the media,” according to official reports obtained by public-safety watchdog CWBChicago through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Smollett was “placed into an unmarked police vehicle, with tinted windows, which was located inside the 001st District sally port” for the ride from the police station to Cook County Jail, the documents revealed.

Not in any rush, the cops offered to make a pit stop for Smollett along the way.

“While in route, [a cop] offered Smollett breakfast, coffee or something to drink, which Smollett declined,” the papers said.

Instead, the $65,000-per-episode actor had a different kind of order for authorities.

“At the request of Smollett,” a Chicago cop asked a Cook County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant at the jail, “if Smollett could be kept segregated and housed alone until his attendance in bond court.”

The lieutenant “stated he would facilitate [the cop’s] request” to keep the Fox TV face out of the general population, the document said.

Smollett fared even better in the hands of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, which, with little in the way of explanation, announced Tuesday that it was dropping the case outright.

All Smollett had to do was surrender to the city the $10,000 he had already coughed up for bail, and perform 16 hours of community service.

Across two eight-hour shifts for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition — a Rev. Jesse Jackson-helmed organization that works to promote human rights — Smollett was hardly stamping license plates.

His duties included stuffing envelopes, helping the group film its weekly broadcast and working with the music director to help get plans for a choir off the ground, according to TMZ.

He also spent time chatting with students about the entertainment industry, and hawking merchandise in the PUSH Freedom Store.

Smollett spent Saturday and Monday working for the organization — which said in a statement that the thespian was already a member and was doing the work of his own volition.

“Jussie is a member of our organization. He, like many other members, has given of his time and talent and continues to do so,” the statement read. “During this period of disruption to his life and livelihood, Jussie has spent time here helping to advance this important work.

“There was no court-ordered community service here.”

Even as Smollett walked free, the courtroom drama might just be beginning, as a member of his legal team said Wednesday that they may now sue over the roller-coaster case.

“We’re weighing our options now,” lawyer Tina Glandian said on “Good Morning America” when asked if they planned to file suit, though it was not immediately clear whom Smollett ­might sue.

“For Jussie, what’s really important is he really just wants his career and his life back,” Glandian continued. “Again, he did not ask for any of this. He was the victim of a crime.”

But prosecutors stopped well short of deeming him innocent.

“We believe he did what he was charged with doing,” Joe Magats, Cook County’s first assistant state’s attorney, had previously told a Chicago ABC affiliate. “This was not an ­exoneration.”

Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed that on Jan. 29 he was jumped by two masked men hurling racist and homophobic epithets, along with a reference to President Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan: “This is MAGA country!”

The duo supposedly beat Smollett, doused him with bleach from a hot sauce bottle and looped a noose around his neck.

But cops traced the bread crumbs of evidence right back to Smollett, concluding that he paid two African-American brothers $3,500 to stage the attack in a bid for public sympathy and a career boost.

Smollett has consistently denied involvement.

The brothers once had minor roles on “Empire,” the prime-time Fox drama on which Smollett stars as gay singer-songwriter Jamal Lyon.

At least one co-star seems ready to welcome Smollett, who was written off the show’s final two episodes of the season, back to the set with open arms.

“I’m happy that the truth has finally been set free, because I knew it all along,” Taraji P. Henson told USA Today. “We’re all happy for him, and thank God the truth prevailed.”