ATLANTA — UPDATE: You can re-watch 11Alive's stream of Day 1 of the trial below.
Original story below
Roughly 18 months after Young Thug and 27 others were indicted as part of a sweeping RICO case alleging that the Atlanta rapper is the kingpin of a street gang called "Young Slime Life," a trial will begin in earnest this week.
Opening statements could come as soon as Monday in the trial, which will ask a jury to decide whether Young Thug is, as prosecutors have alleged, "King Slime" of a violent Atlanta gang or whether, as the rapper's attorneys have steadfastly maintained, the artistic force behind a record label and lifestyle brand miscast by an overly aggressive district attorney's office.
The rapper and his attorneys have strongly maintained his innocence. They've argued he has no associations with any street gangs, and that he and his "YSL" record label - Young Stoner Life - have instead been community backbones in the underserved and often violent Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta where he grew up.
“Mr. Williams came from an incredibly horrible upbringing, and he has conducted himself throughout his life in a way that is just to marvel at,” attorney Brian Steel said last year.
The original indictment by District Attorney Fani Willis cast Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, as someone who could give gang orders, alleging there is evidence of two other gang members accused of attempting to murder rapper YFN Lucci discussing "how to get permission from... Young Thug ... to kill Rayshawn Bennett (YFN Lucci) and what the payment would be to do so."
Over the long pretrial process, the number of Young Thug's co-defendants has whittled down from the original 27 to just five who will now stand alongside the rapper at trial.
Other defendants have been removed from the case along the way for several reasons, either taking plea deals - such as the one that got Gunna out of jail last December - lacking legal representation in several instances, or other circumstances.
The legal case, already considered the "longest in Georgia history," due to the length of the pretrial proceedings and a jury selection process that spanned nearly the entirety of this year, is expected to continue well into 2024 with testimony and arguments.
At the center of it all will be Williams, one of the most celebrated Atlanta hip-hop talents of the last decade.
He has remained in jail since his initial arrest in May 2022, with his attorneys arguing that his health has declined while incarcerated and that he has "languished" in the Cobb County Jail, sleep deprived due to court appearances and eating many foods lacking in nutrition. At multiple junctures, he has been denied bond by Judge Ural Glanville, who will oversee the trial.
The charges against Young Thug include:
- Violation of the Georgia RICO Act
- Unlawful for person who occupies criminal street gang position of organizer/supervisory/management
- Unlawful for person employed/associated with criminal street gang to conduct/participate in criminal activity (2 counts)
- Violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act (3 counts)
- Possession of firearm or knife during the commission of, or attempt to commit, certain felonies
- Use of machine gun, sawed-off rifle, sawed-off shotgun, or silencer during commission of crime
The case will touch on many themes, perhaps most contentiously among them the use of rap lyrics - which has been allowed by Judge Glanville for limited purposes, "depending upon or subject to a foundation that is properly laid by the state."
In the wake of the indictment, supporters of Young Thug criticized the use of lyrics against the rapper as putting hip-hop music and its themes on trial, and the Protect Black Art movement sprouted.
"Rappers are storytellers, creating entire worlds populated with complex characters who can play both hero and villain," the Protect Black Art website argues. "But more than any other art form, rap lyrics are essentially being used as confessions in an attempt to criminalize Black creativity and artistry."
Currently, 17 sets of lyrics from songs Young Thug, as well as the other defendants performed, will be included as part of the evidence in this case.
An example of this is the lyric, "I shot at his mommy. Now, she no longer mention me and I never killed anybody but I got something to do with that body. I told them to shoot a hundred rounds."
One of the central flashpoints of the case will be the 2015 Atlanta murder of Donovan Thomas Jr. Prosecutors have alleged Young Thug played a central role in the killing, including renting the car used to gun Thomas down.
DA Willis, after that indictment, said the murder of Thomas set off gang wars and "created violence like Atlanta has never seen."
A number of music industry and cultural figures have testified on Young Thug's behalf at previous proceedings and could again testify at trial. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have a witness list with hundreds of people on it.
The jury consists of seven Black women, two white women, two Black men and one white man.