fulton county
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will appeal her disqualification from the election interference case against Donald Trump by the Georgia Court of Appeals.
Hours after the Georgia Court of Appeals announced that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting the election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday (December 19), Willis’ office declared its intent “to petition the Supreme Court of Georgia” to appeal the decision in a motion filed with the court. There has been no further comment from Willis or her office.
Willis’ debarment from the highly intricate case came after the three-judge panel of the Georgia Court of Appeals overturned the trial judge’s decision earlier in the day, by a vote of 2-1. Judge Scott McAfee had ruled in March that Wills could remain on the case despite revelations that she had been in a romantic relationship with the lawyer she brought on to handle the prosecution, Nathan Wade. The defense attorneys in the case seized upon that information, forcing Willis to testify about the relationship in January of this year.
The three judges on the Court of Appeals panel are all Republicans. The Georgia Supreme Court is also predominately composed of Republican judges. Appealing the decision comes with a high risk – if the Georgia Supreme Court upholds the lower court’s decision, it would effectively scuttle the case which is the last standing prosecution against Trump. Sentencing in his “hush money” case in New York City has been delayed, and the Department of Justice opted to drop its cases against the president-elect citing the precedent of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons said that “it’s a tough call to say whether the Court of Appeals got it right,” in an interview with the New York Times adding that “their reasoning was that the people lost confidence in the case.” But he also noted that Judge McAfee, who is a conservative, saw enough merit in Willis to continue on the case and cited Willis having “won re-election in a landslide, suggesting that Fulton County at least has confidence in her.”
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Source: Fulton County Jail / Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
The former Kanye West publicist Trevian Kutti will need new lawyers after being dropped by her legal team following her recent Instagram posts.
On Monday (December 18), the legal team defending former Kanye West publicist Trevian Kutti filed a motion with the Fulton County Superior Court to withdraw as her counsel. The document notes that Kutti was advised of the move, and it doesn’t give an explicit reason as to why she was dropped. But it does come after Kutti posted a photo to her Instagram account showing her posing with the convicted January 6 rioter Jacob Chansley, notoriously known as the “QAnon Shaman”, with both holding up middle fingers.
In the caption, Kutti writes “Just like they lied on him THEY ARE LYING ON ME,” with the phrase “Cue the haters” superimposed on the photo. The photo was taken at AmFest 2023, an annual convention for the right-wing organization Turning Point USA which was held over the past weekend in Phoenix, Arizona. Chansley, known for his buffalo headdress, was one of the more prominent insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol building first and received one of the heftiest sentences by far among those convicted.
Kutti, who is on trial as a co-defendant of former President Donald Trump for their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has been unrepentant over her actions as four of the other 19 indicted by Fulton County have already accepted plea deals and will testify. She even went so far as to threaten election worker Ruby Freeman during an Instagram Live session she held to raise funds for her defense in November. “There’s a woman sitting somewhere who knows that I’m going to f**k her whole life up when this is done,” she said during the video. Such actions can be taken as a violation of her bond agreement.
The filing listed Darryl B. Cohen and the law firm Cohen Cooper Estep & Allen; Steven A. Greenberg and the law firm Greenberg Trial Lawyers; and Joshua G. Herman and the law firm Law Office of Joshua G. Herman as Kutti’s former barristers. She now has ten days to file an objection, prepare to defend herself in court, or seek new legal representation.
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Prosecutors in the YSL racketeering trial have dropped charges against one defendant who was recently convicted of murder for the second time.
On Tuesday (September 12th), Fulton County prosecutor Adriane Love informed the judge that the office would “nolle pros” the two RICO charges in their case against Cordarius Dorsey, also known as YSL Polo. This was prompted by his conviction by a jury for the murder of Xavier Turner last week. It marks the second time Polo has been convicted of murder in less than a year. He was sentenced to life in prison on the first conviction.
The murder of the 44-year-old Turner took place at the Old National Village Discount Mall in College Park, Georgia. Video evidence showing the incident was used in this case to convict Dorsey. Video evidence also played a role in the conviction for the 2019 armed robbery and murder of Sulaiman Jalloh, a 39-year-old husband and father of six at a gas station in October 2019.
Young Thug had petitioned the court to sever his case from YSL Polo’s. “Jeffery Williams, by and through undersigned counsel, hereby files this motion to sever parties in the above-referenced case,” wrote his attorney Brian Steel in a motion. “In support of this Motion, Mr. Williams shows as follows. Mr. Williams is innocent of all charges in the above-referenced indictment. Mr. Dorsey, a co-indictee, has displayed unprofessional and unacceptable conduct in Court, in the presence of this Honorable Court, as announced on the Record on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023.”
The move now leaves seven defendants in the sweeping racketeering trial including Young Thug. The case originally involved 28 people who were indicted in what Fulton County District Attorney Dani Willis called “havoc” caused in the city of Atlanta dating back to 2015. Since then, most including Gunna have accepted plea deals or have had their cases severed from the main case. There is no date set for opening statements in the RICO trial, as jury selection – which started in January – is still ongoing.
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Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney leading the prosecution against Donald Trump and over a dozen co-conspirators in a RICO case, has proven her mettle time and again. In a fiery rebuke of Republican Party Rep. Jim Jordan, Fani Willis explicitly told the congressman that his investigation into the RICO case makes it appear that he’s out of his legal depths.
Fani Willis sent Rep. Jordan a nine-page letter addressing his plans to investigate her office’s probe into the affairs of Trump and the others named in the RICO case, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. From her viewpoint, Willis sees Jordan’s attempt to look further into her tactics as a form of interfering with the matter.
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Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, requested to see communication between the Fulton County DA’s office and the Justice Department as it relates to both the RICO case and the Justice Department also indicting Trump for alleging attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor. Jordan’s stance is that Willis is interfering with the 2024 elections and jeopardizes the rights of Trump, who leads all polls as the GOP candidate, and the other defendants named in the case.
In a letter sent out on Thursday (September 7), Willis did not hold back from addressing Jordan’s concerns and the aims of his investigation.
From AJC:
Willis also responded to allegations she is unfairly targeting Trump. She said his “status as a political candidate cannot make him legally immune from criminal prosecution.” She noted the special grand jury recommended charges in the case, and a separate jury issued indictments.
“Face this reality, Chairman Jordan: the select group of defendants who you fret over in my jurisdiction are like every other defendant, entitled to no worse or better treatment than any other American citizen,” she wrote.
Willis blasted Jordan’s request for information as illegal and improper.
“Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically,” she wrote.
Jordan’s office has yet to make a public reply or statement regarding Willis’ letter.
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Young Thug is calling out a police officer’s claim that he’s a snitch, as his lawyers try to get the testimony thrown out before his trial.
Attorneys for the “Metro Spider” rapper filed two motions Thursday (June 29) and Friday (June 23) with the former arguing that a witness in the case who is a police detective is falsely claiming that Jeffrey Williams, aka Young Thug, confessed details of an unrelated homicide case to that detective.
In the motion, lead attorney Brian Steel argues that Judge Ural Glanville should throw out the testimony of Detective Quinn stating that it is “not accurate, places Mr. Williams’ character at issue, and is irrelevant to the trial of the above-referenced case.” Steel also states that Young Thug’s “right to a fair trial” needs to be preserved by the court and that Judge Glanville should also toss out any records of 911 calls allegedly made by the rapper in relation to this unrelated homicide.
Steel’s previous motion June 23, asked Judge Glanville to dismiss the RICO charges brought against Young Thug and his YSL co-defendants, citing the statute of limitations for the state in RICO cases has been exceeded. “In order to satisfy the crime of RICO conspiracy, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that at least one (1) overt act was committed in furtherance of the conspiracy within the Statute of Limitations,” the motion says. “To satisfy the Statute of Limitations, the overt act must have occurred within five (5) years of the filing of the Bill of Indictment with the Clerk of Court.”
That motion continues: “Approximately overt act numbers 62 through 191 are alleged to have occurred on a date within five (5) years of May 9, 2022, the date of the original Bill of Indictment as well as the re-Indictment. The re-indictment was filed with the Fulton County Clerk of Court on August 5, 2022.”
The motions come as jury selection in the trial has been halted and scheduled to resume July 10. The high-profile case has run into several stumbling blocks from Young Thug’s brother having his probation revoked and going to prison to a Fulton County deputy being arrested on charges of inappropriate contact with one of the defendants. Young Thug also underwent a medical evaluation in May over concerns about his well-being while in custody.
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