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Atlanta prosecutors accused chart-topping rapper Young Thug of running a criminal street gang that operated like a “pack” of wolves during opening statements of the artist’s high-profile racketeering trial on Monday (Nov. 27).
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Kicking off a complex trial that is expected to last as long as a year, Fulton County Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love read a passage from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book about wolf packs — and said that Thug’s gang had similarly “operated as a pack.”
“For ten years and counting, the group calling itself ‘Young Slime Life’ dominated the Cleveland Avenue community,” Love told the jury. “They created a crater … that sucked in the youth and innocence and even the lives of some its youngest members.”
Love repeatedly referred to Thug as “King Slime” and portrayed him as the clear leader of the gang: “The evidence will show that the members of YSL knew who their leader was, and they knew the repercussions of not obeying him.”
In an indictment unveiled last year, Fulton County prosecutors alleged that Thug (Jeffery Williams) and his “YSL” were not really a popular music collective called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life” that committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
Along with other charges, Thug is accused of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law based on the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other forms of organized crime. If convicted on all eight of his counts, Thug faces decades in prison.
Go read an explainer of the YSL case here, including a full breakdown of the legal charges and a deep-dive into the background of the accusations.
After months of slow-moving jury selection, Monday morning was set to finally mark the start of the trial for Thug and five remaining alleged members of his gang. But the start of the hearing was delayed for an hour over a missing juror; then, just minutes into Love’s statements, the case was bogged down in objections, forcing Judge Ural Glanville to clear the jury from the courtroom.
Defense attorneys first claimed that Love was “burden shifting” in her explanation of the case to jurors – meaning she was wrongly making it appear that the defendants would need to prove that they were innocent. Thug’s lawyer, Brian Steel, then moved for a mistrial after he claimed that Love had shown jurors evidence that had already been explicitly banned from the case. Glanville later denied that request but admonished the state for how it had prepared its opening statements.
Eventually, after a lunch break and extended disputes among counsel for both sides, jurors returned to the courtroom for opening statements to continue throughout the afternoon.
This is a developing story and will be updated later today with more information from Monday’s hearing.
At the end of 2021, Young Thug was one of hip-hop’s biggest rising stars: a critically-adored rapper with three chart-topping hits, three-chart topping albums, a Grammy award for song of the year and his own record label (YSL, short for Young Stoner Life) under Warner Music’s 300 Entertainment.
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Two years later, Thug (real name Jeffery Williams) is set to face a grueling trial starting Monday (Nov. 27) over allegations he ran a violent Atlanta street gang that committed murders, carjackings and many other crimes over the course of a decade — charges that, if proven, could send him to prison for decades.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office is prosecuting the case, has said that YSL wrought “havoc” on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade: “It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is,” Willis said hours after the superstar rapper was first arrested. Thug’s lawyer, Brian Steel, says he is innocent: “Mr. Williams committed no crime whatsoever.”
The YSL case pits prosecutors in America’s rap capital against one of the country’s biggest hip-hop artists, making it one of the music industry’s most closely-watched criminal cases in years. To get you up to speed before the trial, Billboard is explaining the YSL case: How did we get here? What exactly is this case about? And what comes next? Here’s everything you need to know.
What’s Young Thug accused of doing?
In May 2022, Willis unveiled a 56-count indictment against Thug and 27 other alleged members of YSL — an entity that she says is not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but actually a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life” that’s affiliated with the national Bloods gang.
The case claims that since 2012, YSL members have committed a wide range of criminal wrongdoing centered on the Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta, including murder, assault, robbery, theft, illegal gun possession, illegal drug possession and sales, and more. And prosecutors say that Thug was the clear leader of the organization — they’ve called him “King Slime — who “made YSL a well-known name” by “referring to it in his songs.”
In addition to Thug, the charges also targeted his star protégé Sergio “Gunna” Kitchens, as well as Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Arnold “Lil Duke” Martinez, Thug’s brother Quantavious “Unfoonk” Grier and many others.
The case is built on Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law based on the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other forms of organized crime. Such racketeering laws make it easier for prosecutors to sweep up members of an alleged criminal enterprise based on many individual actions.
Some of the most serious accusations in the indictment center on the 2015 killing of Donovan “Big Nut” Thomas Jr., who prosecutors say ran a rival gang in Atlanta. Five YSL members are directly charged with the murder, while Thug himself is accused of renting the car that was used to commit the killing.
Prosecutors also say other members looked to Thug for leadership on serious crimes. In one allegation, the indictment claims that two other YSL members discussed “how to obtain permission” from the rapper before attempting to murder rival rapper YFN Lucci (Rayshawn Bennett) while he was in jail.
After an updated, 65-count indictment was filed August 2022, the star himself is now facing eight counts, including one count of participating in the RICO conspiracy; one count of participating in a criminal street gang; three counts of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act; one count of possession of a firearm while committing a felony; and one count of possession of a machine gun.
Go read the full indictment here.
What happened to Gunna?
In the 18 months since the YSL indictment was first handed down, many of the original 28 defendants have either accepted plea deals or been separated from the case for procedural reasons, leaving only six defendants to face trial this week. Just weeks ago, for instance, Derontae “Bee” Bebee pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The biggest plea came from Gunna, a critically-acclaimed YSL artist who has frequently been described as Young Thug’s protégé. Last December, he took a so-called Alford plea — a legal maneuver that allows a defendant to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence. The deal made sense: Gunna had been charged in only one count of the indictment and faced far less serious accusations, mostly centered on his participation in music and social media that promoted YSL.
At the time, Gunna stressed that he had not agreed to work with prosecutors to convict Young Thug or any of the other defendants, and had “absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way.” But at the court hearing where he entered the plea deal, Gunna publicly acknowledged that YSL was both “a music label and a gang,” and that he had “personal knowledge that members or associates of YSL have committed crimes and in furtherance of the gang.”
That has led to some backlash for the rapper, but true to his word, Gunna is not expected to testify at the upcoming trial. Citing an anonymous source, Rolling Stone reported in December that an understanding had been reached that “the state is not going to call him as a witness.” And if he were called, he would still be entitled to exercise his Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering questions.
Why are rap lyrics being cited in court?
The YSL case is one of the most prominent examples of prosecutors using lyrics as evidence against the artists who wrote them — a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from civil liberties activists, defense attorneys and, increasingly, the music industry.
Critics say the use of lyrics as evidence unfairly treats rap as a literal confession rather than a work of creative expression, potentially violating the First Amendment. Even worse, they say rap can have a prejudicial effect on jurors, tapping into existing biases toward young Black men and helping prosecutors win convictions where more concrete evidence is lacking.
California recently enacted first-of-its-kind legislation restricting the practice, and Democrats in Congress have proposed a bill that would do the same in federal cases — an effort supported by major music industry groups. But in the absence of such laws, courts around the country have mostly upheld the right of prosecutors to cite rap lyrics, particularly in gang-related cases.
For her part, the Fulton County District Attorney has offered no apologies: “If you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m gonna use it,” Willis said last year. “I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used, or at least get out of my county.”
At a climactic pre-trial hearing earlier this month, Thug’s lawyer blasted prosecutors for attempting to use creative expression to convict his client. “They are targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong,” he said. “They are saying that just because he his singing about it, he is now part of a crime.”
Prosecutors argued back that lyrics were “proclamations of violence” by alleged gang members, making them “highly relevant” to proving that YSL was an illegal criminal enterprise. “The issue here is not rap,” one Fulton County attorney argued. “This is not randomly the state attempting to bring in Run DMC from the ’80s. This is specific. These are party admissions. They just happen come in the form of lyrics.”
In the end, Judge Ural Glanville sided with prosecutors and allowed the lyrics to be used in the case, repeatedly telling Thug’s lawyer that “the First Amendment is not on trial” in the case. “They’re not prosecuting your clients because of the songs they wrote,” Glanville said. “They’re using the songs to prove other things your clients may have been involved in. I don’t think it’s an attack on free speech.”
Go read the full list of lyrics that could be cited in the case here.
What took so long to get to trial?
The case against YSL is almost unfathomably complex — so much so that it has repeatedly strained the local legal system nearly to its breaking point.
With 28 men originally indicted, finding lawyers for all of them — a constitutional requirement — proved difficult. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, prosecutors secured millions in extra funding to bring huge gang cases, but Georgia’s public defense system did not receive equal funding to keep up. That forced the state to contract with numerous private defense attorneys to help cover the YSL case, but even that arrangement nearly fell apart this past spring over inadequate pay.
Jury selection was even harder. With the trial expected to last as long as a year, it proved nearly impossible to find a dozen people who could drop their financial commitments and halt their lives for that long. The selection process started in January with hopes that the trial could kick off in the spring, but it eventually took more than 10 months — by most accounts, the longest ever jury selection in Georgia state history.
Throughout all of that, Young Thug and the other defendants have been sitting in jail. Though Thug’s attorneys argued that he should be placed under house arrest, Judge Glanville repeatedly refused to grant him bond, swayed by arguments from prosecutors that doing so would increase the risk of witness intimidation.
How is Donald Trump involved?
If the words “Fani Willis” and “RICO” sound familiar, they should: She’s using the very same statute to bring an even-higher-profile case against Trump and others over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Back in August, a Fulton County grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others over accusations that they participated in a criminal scheme to try to keep the Republican in the White House after he lost the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. Several co-defendants in that case have recently pled guilty to lesser charges, including former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.
Willis recently proposed an August 2024 trial for the case — a timeline that could mean that both the YSL trial and the Trump trial would be happening simultaneously. Like the YSL case, the DA’s office expects the election trial to last many months.
Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, represented Gunna in the YSL case and negotiated his plea deal to end his involvement.
What do prosecutors need to prove?
As with all criminal cases, the burden is on prosecutors to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Thug and others did what they’re accused of — meaning jurors must be virtually certain that they’re guilty before they vote to convict.
To prove the core RICO charges, the DA’s office will need to show a “pattern of racketeering activity” by the YSL members — meaning they conspired to run an illegal enterprise, or a “racket.”
Prosecutors will try to do so by detailing more than 150 “acts” that were allegedly carried out “in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Some of those will be what are called “predicates” — meaning actions that would crimes on their own, like the like Donovan murder. But others will merely be “overt acts,” meaning any concrete step that YSL members took to help the illegal enterprise, even if it isn’t a crime on its own. That’s where social media posts and song lyrics come into the case.
Importantly, prosecutors don’t need to show that every defendant knew about every element of YSL’s operations. They only need to prove that each YSL member knew about the conspiracy and agreed to be part of it, and took at least two actions to further it.
RICO is best known for the federal law that was created in the 1970s to target mob bosses who didn’t directly commit crimes themselves. But many states have passed their own versions, and Georgia’s, passed in 1981, is notably broader than the federal version. It has a longer list of crimes that can serve as “predicates,” and it covers shorter-term criminal conspiracies than the federal law.
Willis is very familiar with Georgia’s RICO statute. In addition to using it against YSL and former President Trump, she also recently brought a RICO case against a gang that allegedly robbed the Atlanta homes of celebrities like Mariah Carey.
And back in 2014, when she was an assistant DA, Willis served as lead prosecutor in a RICO case against a group of Atlanta educators over their role in widespread cheating on standardized tests. Following an eight month trial — the longest in Georgia history — Willis secured convictions against 11 of 12 of the teachers.
“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Willis told reporters last year. “RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”
How is the trial going to play out?
Starting first thing on Monday, the six remaining defendants — Thug, Marquavius Huey, Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Quamarvious Nichols, Rodalius Ryan and Shannon Stillwell — will go to trial.
The jury, composed of seven Black women, two white women, two Black men and one white man, will hear opening arguments from both sides, and then the DA’s office will begin calling witnesses. According to a report by Atlanta’s 11Alive, prosecutors said in court earlier this month that their list of potential witnesses includes a stunning 737 names, featuring 258 lay witnesses — regular people who can testify to what they saw — and 479 expert witnesses, who will explain complex issues to jurors.
Eventually, the defendants will get a chance to call their own witnesses. In a recent legal filing, Thug listed among his potential witnesses rappers T.I. (real name Clifford Harris) and Killer Mike (Michael Render), as well as music business executive Lyor Cohen, who co-founded 300 Entertainment. Thug’s attorneys will also call their own expert witnesses to counter the testimony from the government.
If convicted on the RICO charge, the defendants face prison sentences lasting anywhere from five to 20 years. But Thug and others also face separate charges over other specific crimes that, if proven, could add additional prison time to any eventual sentence.
An Atlanta judge ruled Thursday that he would allow many of Young Thug’s rap lyrics to be used as evidence against him and other alleged gang members in their upcoming criminal trial, rejecting arguments that doing so would violate the First Amendment.
The ruling came a day after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville held a hotly-anticipated hearing about the use of lyrics as evidence – a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it.
The lyrics could play a key role in the trial, which will kick off later this month. Prosecutors allege that Thug (Jeffery Williams) and his “YSL” were not really a popular music collective called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life” that committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
Representing the superstar artist, attorney Brian Steel blasted prosecutors for attempting to use creative expression to convict his client. “They are targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong,” Steel said. “They are saying that just because he his singing about it, he is now part of a crime.”
But after an hours-long hearing that ran until nearly 9 pm on Wednesday evening, Judge Glanville largely rejected those arguments. “They’re not prosecuting your clients because of the songs they wrote,” Glanville said from the bench. “They’re using the songs to prove other things your clients may have been involved in. I don’t think it’s an attack on free speech.”
In a formal ruling on Thursday morning, the judge denied Thug’s request to ban the lyrics entirely, and granted a motion by prosecutors to preliminarily admit them. Though Judge Glanville said prosecutors would still need to establish why they were using them and that Steel could object during the trial, the judge repeatedly suggested at Wednesday’s hearing that he would allow lyrics to be admitted as evidence and that it would be up to jurors to decide how much weight to give them.
At the hearing, prosecutor Michael Carlson urged Judge Glanville to avoid sweeping questions about free speech. He said the actual issue before the court was not rap lyrics but rather “proclamations of violence” by alleged gang members that are “highly relevant in this case.”
“The issue here is not rap,” Carlson said. “This is not randomly the state attempting to bring in Run DMC from the 80s. This is specific. These are party admissions. They just happen come in the form of lyrics.”
Near the end of the hearing, Carlson sharply criticized the suggestion that the rap lyrics in question were simply works of art without a direct link to real events. “People can look at that indictment and see one thing that’s for sure not fantasy: People are dead. Murdered.”
“That’s not fantasy, your honor,” Carlson said. “That’s tragically real.”
Earlier on Wednesday, prosecutor Symone Hylton highlighted specific lyrics that the state plans to play for jurors during the trial and explained why they were relevant enough to be admitted. They included lines from Thug’s 2016 song “Slime Shit,” in which he raps about “killin’ 12 shit” and “hundred rounds in a Tahoe.”
Hylton argued that “12” is a well-known euphemism for police officers, and that the lyric referred to a specific incident in which an officer was shot by a YSL member. And she said that the “Tahoe” lyric was a boast about the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas – a key allegation in the indictment.
“Not only did Donovan Thomas drive a Tahoe, there were multiple rounds of shell casings laid out on the ground where he was killed in front of his barber shop,” Hylton said. “While [the lyric] may on the surface seem irrelevant, when you put it to the facts that are going to come out in this case, that particular verse becomes very relevant.”
Among other songs, she also referenced the 2018 track “Anybody,” in which Thug raps “I never killed anybody/ But I got somethin’ to do with that body”; and the song “Really Be Slime,” a 2021 compilation track released by Young Stoner Life Records that features the line “You wanna be slime? Go catch you a body.”
“It’s the state’s contention that [the lyric] means you go out and you go murder someone,” Hylton said. “That’s how you become ‘slime’.”
Young Thug, Gunna and dozens of other alleged YSL members were indicted in May 2022. Gunna and several other defendants eventually reached plea deals, and other defendants were separated from the main case, leaving just Thug and five others to face a jury. If fully convicted, he could face a life sentence.
After months of delays, a jury was finally seated last week, clearing the way for the trial to kick off on Nov. 27 – proceedings that are expected to last well into 2024. But before then, Judge Ural Glanville must decide on whether the jury can hear his lyrics as part of the prosecution’s case.
Civil liberties activists and defense attorneys have long criticized the use of rap lyrics to win criminal convictions. They argue that it unfairly targets constitutionally protected speech, treating hyperbolic verse as literal confessions; they also say it can unfairly sway juries by tapping into racial biases.
Lawmakers in California enacted legislation last year restricting the use of creative expression as evidence in criminal cases, and a federal bill in Congress that would impose similar restrictions has been widely supported by the music industry. But absent such statutes, courts around the country have mostly upheld the right of prosecutors to cite rap lyrics, particularly in gang-related cases.
In his arguments Wednesday, Thug’s lawyer Steel echoed such concerns in pushing to exclude the lyrics from the case. He noted that many other artists had used similar phrases – he name-dropped Rick Ross, Meek Mill and Cardi B — and that rap lyrics are often exaggerated or wholly fictional. Steel argued that individual lyrics should only be admitted when prosecutors have linked them much more specifically to actual alleged actions – an analysis he said the DA’s office had failed to perform.
But Steel’s main message for Judge Glanville was that using the lyrics would violate the First Amendment and its protections for free speech, arguing that it would effectively criminalize the output of a “prolific songwriter.”
“A person in America can say I hate Brian Steel, I hate criminal defense lawyers, I hate prosecutors, I hate judges,” Steel said. “We believe that we flourish when we can share ideas even when they’re repugnant, even when you don’t agree with them.”
“If you allow this evidence,” Steel said, “it’s going to have a chilling effect.”
But Judge Glanville was skeptical of Steel’s arguments from the beginning, repeatedly suggesting that he believed some of the lyrics were relevant enough to be admitted in the case — and occasionally showing frustration with Steel’s arguments to the contrary. At one point, he interrupted Steel to say that “the First Amendment is not on trial.”
Later, Steel said that prosecutors were using Thug’s “words” to convince jurors that he was “a bad man” — the kind of improper “character” evidence that is typically rejected. But Judge Glanville again had a quick retort: “No they’re not. They’re using his words to show that he’s involved in a gang.”
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While Gunna has shed all his pounds, his mentor, Young Thug, apparently has gained weight while in prison.
The jury has finally been chosen for Young Thug’s YSL RICO trial, but that’s not the only thing fans of the rapper are talking about.
A new photo of the rapper has hit timelines, showing a much heavier-looking Young Thug. The “Barter 6” rapper is well known for his slender build, but now he’s looking like he isn’t skipping any meals while being locked up as he awaits his trial to begin.
“Gunna came out like Thug, Thug came out looking like Gunna,” one person hilariously wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“WTH…How you gain so much weight in jail,” another X user wrote.
“He is big thug now,” another person jokingly said in an X post.
Other users attributed Thugger’s apparent weight game to him being drug-free while locked up.
“That drug free weight,” one person wrote in the comment section of a post of the photo on The Neighborhood Talk’s Instagram account.
“That’s Sober Weight 😂 no more drugs and liq will do that,” another commenter wrote.
Another comment read, “that’s what happens when you no longer on drugs and lean and all the bad shit!”
Young Thug Has Bigger Things To Worry About
Well, Thugger’s weight is the least of his current worries. The Hip-Hop star is looking at life in prison if he is found guilty on all of the charges in his RICO indictment.
Per Fox 5 Atlanta:
The RICO indictment was filed on May 9, 2022. Initially, Williams was only named in counts one (conspiracy to violate RICO) and 56 (participation in criminal street gang activity). Count 56 alleges that he was in a position of leadership within YSL and was either directly or indirectly involved in acts of murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, theft, sale of drugs, and other criminal acts.
He was later indicted on six additional counts after searches of his home. If Williams is found guilty on all counts, he could face life in prison.
Yikes.
You can see more reactions to Young Thug putting on some pounds in the gallery below.
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Photo: Paras Griffin / Getty
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Source: Fulton County PD / Fulton County Sheriff’s Department
The moment of truth for Young Thug and his YSL associates is drawing near. A judge will commence seating the jury for the YSL RICO trial this week.
11Alive has exclusively confirmed that a County Clark magistrate will begin assigning jury seats Wednesday, (Nov. 1.) Even though this process was originally scheduled for later this month, Judge Ural Glanville has moved it up in alignment with the Georgia Speedy Trial law. According to Reuters, the legislation says, “Criminal defendants in Georgia can request that their trial begin in the weeks after they are indicted, as long as jurors are available to hear the case.”
It is no surprise that the “Lifestyle” rapper is eagerly awaiting the chance to defend his name. The jury selection process has been time consuming to say the least. It originally started in January and took the majority of this year to finalize. All the while Young Thug has remained behind bars as he awaits trial; he was originally arrested in May 2022.
He has been denied bond several times with his last attempt being in June. His legal team claims the time behind bars has had a glaring effect on his health. “This lifestyle has caused physically harm to Mr. Williams,” his lawyer stated during a hearing in June, according to 11Alive.
Georgia prosecutors allege that YSL is a gang with Young Thug serving as its leader. Young Thug has plead not guilty to the charges.
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Killer Mike is making sure his good name stays clean. The Atlanta rapper has denied doing any business with Cesar Pina after an old clip went viral.
HipHopDX is reporting that the Georgia native is making sure his name is not connected to Cesar Pina in any way. Earlier this week a video of the trapper turned rapper with the real estate entrepreneur from years back. The two are seen standing in front of a housing complex in Atlanta. “I haven’t hijacked or kidnapped DJ Envy — don’t worry, he’ll be back,” the MC quipped. “But I’m with my man Cesar right now. I said, ‘Cesar, you got to show me the gold mines that surround me.’
As expected Cesar chimes in and gets his huckster on. “We got a 28-unit building. Looks like a home run to me. 28 two-bedrooms, town house-style. We see opportunity out here. That’s all we see” he said. Killer Mike added “And we not going to pay a lot of money for it,” with Pina responding “Oh no, that’s key. Under market value.” The Trigger Warning host would go on to say “I’m about to go ride around and look at some more sh*t”.
In the wake of Cesar Pina getting hit with federal charges for allegedly running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme the clip resurfaced prompting Mike to clear things up. “A mutual friend told me I should meet him so I did,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We did no business, I never endorsed him and if u watch the video I just looked at some sh*t he showed me and got outta there.”
You can see the original clip with Killer Mike and Cesar below.
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OK, this is yuge!
A second co-defendant in Donald Trump’s RICO indictment for allegedly interfering with the 2020 election in Georgia has pleaded guilty. But not just any defendant. Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell was one of the most visible, publicity-loving members of the ex-president’s legal team. She was basically ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani‘s sidekick as they tied up courts at every level with frivolous cases and easily dismissed alleging the fiction that Trump lost his bid for a second term because of illegal voting, made-up ballots and rigged voting machines.
She was also charged with six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, which, on Thursday, she pleaded guilty to.
From USA Today:
Powell agreed to testify in future trials in exchange for serving six years of probation, a $6,000 fine and paying restitution of $2,700.
Powell is one of 19 co-defendants charged in the case, which alleged a broad racketeering conspiracy. Other portions of the conspiracy included the recruitment of fake presidential electors to vote for Trump despite President Joe Biden winning Georgia, lying about election results to state officials and in court records, and soliciting public officials to violate their oaths of office.
Legal experts said Powell’s agreement to testify against others in the case is “very significant” because she dealt at length with Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others charged in the conspiracy.
“I think it’s very significant because she is one of the people who was closest to Trump in many of these alleged nefarious activities, and as part of the agreement, she must testify truthfully against Trump as well as the other defendants,’ said John Banzhaf, a George Washington University law professor who has been following the case closely. “So it is a major victory for Fani Willis and certainly a major concern for Trump.”
Powell was initially charged with conspiring with bail bondsman Scott Hall, who has also pleaded guilty to the RICO charges against him and others to access election equipment provided by Dominion Voting Systems without authorization. They even hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to copy software and data from voting machines and computers they were told they couldn’t legally access. Another way of putting that is that they used fraudulent means to prove Dominion’s voting machines were fraudulent, which, of course, they were not.
It’s worth pointing out that conspiring to undermine democracy in order to keep Trump in office after he was legally voted out should not be a misdemeanor and certainly should result in more than less than a year of probation and less than $10,000 in fines. On top of that, Powell won’t even have to call herself a convict officially.
More from USA Today:
Powell’s agreement fell under Georgia’s First Offender Act, which will allow her to “honestly say” she was never convicted of the charges if she successfully completes her probation and is discharged, according to prosecutor Daysha Young. If Powell violates the terms of her first-offender sentence or commits another offense while on probation, her first-offender status could be revoked and she could be resentenced to the maximum, Young said.
Still, legal experts feel that Powell’s plea is a big step toward the prosecutors proving their case against Trump and the other 17 co-defendants considering she was such a major player in his circus-like MAGA games.
“Miss Powell is at the vortex, the center, the hub of the alleged conspiracy,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official who has decades of experience with RICO cases. “She will be a phenomenal witness for the government because she was at strategic meetings, part of important conversations and she was a leader in implementing the scheme to discredit the lawful election of Joe Biden.”
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Donald Trump goes through lawyers at about the same rate civilians go through shoes and sneakers. The ex-President just hired a new lawyer, who in the recent past represented rappers Rick Ross. T.I. and Gunna, and singer Usher, among others, on the same day he is to surrender to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office for his RICO case.
Yeah, Cheeto caught a RICO charge (which has created some now well-traveled mug shots of his famed co-defendants like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows) and now he’s hiring an accomplished lawyer from the “urban music” world, again. You can’t make this stuff up. Trump’s new lawyer is Steven Sadow, who is a well-regarded criminal defense lawyer. We trust that he demanded an insane upfront payment considering Trump’s well-documented penchant for not paying his attorneys in full.
The New York Times reports that Sadow filed documents with the court on Thursday (August 24) saying he was now “lead counsel of record for Donald John Trump” while Drew Findling will be stepping down as Trump’s representation in his RICO case. It was Findling and his team who negotiated Trump’s $200,000 bond in the case.
The Atlanta-based Sadow has handled some high-profile cases in the Hip-Hop world as a defender. Some of his clients have included Usher, Rick Ross and T.I. He infamously represented Ray Lewis’ co-defendant Jeffrey Sweeting in the ex-NFL linebacker’s murder trial, for which he was acquitted. Most recently, he represented Gunna in the rapper’s own RICO case involving Young Thug and YSL. He managed to get Gunna, born Sergio Kitchens, “negotiated guilty plea” that saw him get time served in exchange for a guilty plea while maintaining his innocence. This hasn’t gone over well with some fans, and fellow rappers.
Clearly, Atlanta rappers stay hiring pricey lawyers considering Findling, now Trump’s former lawyer, has represented Gucci Mane. Cardi B, Offset and BMF’s Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, amongst others.
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Disgraced former president Donald Trump is in a world of trouble. Of the 18 names listed in the sprawling unsealed 41-count indictment by Fulton County, Georgia D.A. Fani Willis, one name stands out, Trevian C. Kutti.
While the usual suspects in the world of politics, like agent orange, aka Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows, are listed in the indictment, no one could foresee Kanye West’s former publicist, Trevian C. Kutti would be among those names.
Kutti may not ring political bells, but she is deeply involved in the shenanigans during the 2020 presidential election that saw President Joe Biden secure a massive win in Georgia.
Kutti was caught in 4K trying to convince Ruby Freeman, a Black Georgia election worker, to implicate herself in election fraud. Freeman’s life was ruined after Trump attacked her publicly.
Deadline reports Kutti, Stephen Cliffguard Lee, and Harrison William Prescott Floyd were hit with counts 30 and 31. It charges them each with “conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statement and writings” and “influencing witnesses.”
Per Deadline:
Count 30 says the trio “unlawfully conspired to solicit, request, and importune Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of False Statements and Writings, O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20, by knowingly and willfully making a false statement and representation concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia…with intent that said person engage in said conduct; and TREVIAN C. KUTTI traveled to Fulton County, Georgia, and placed a telephone call to Ruby Freeman while in Fulton County, Georgia, which were overt acts to effect the object of the conspiracy, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
Count 31 alleges Kutti, Lee and Floyd “knowingly and unlawfully engaged in misleading conduct toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, by stating that she needed protection and by purporting to offer her help, with intent to influence her testimony in an official proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia, concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
Kanye West Allegedly Cut Ties With Kutti After Ending Presidential Campaign
According to the indictment, the alleged foolery took place around January 4, 2021, just two months after Kanye West shuttered his failed presidential bid that he allegedly got help from some Trump allies to run.
Donald Trump’s former homie denied any involvement with Kutti through a spokesperson in response to a December 2021 Reuters story. “Trevian Kutti was not associated with Kanye West or any of his enterprises at the times of the facts that are reported in these articles or since these facts occurred,” the statement reads.
Kutti also used to work with convicted sex offender R. Kelly, so that should tell you a lot about her.
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Photo: Daniel Zuchnik / Getty
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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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