A juror’s car trouble and a heated back-and-forth over attorneys’ PowerPoint slides led to delays Monday at the start of the gang and racketeering trial for Atlanta rapper Young Thug and five codefendants.
Prosecutors allege the Grammy-winning rapper, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, is the co-founder and leader of “Young Slime Life,” which they contend is a south Atlanta street gang responsible for robberies, shootings and at least three homicides. The defense says YSL is a record label.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Williams was one of 28 people named in a sprawling gang indictment last year charging each of the defendants with conspiring to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. A total of six defendants are standing trial together after some defendants took plea deals and others’ cases were severed. The state dropped charges against one defendant already serving life in two separate murder cases.
After 11 months of jury selection and motions hearings, opening statements were scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Monday, but were held up by the delayed juror and defense objections to the prosecution’s PowerPoint presentation. Defense attorneys complained that they were never given a copy of the presentation, in which one slide incorrectly stated that Young Thug’s attorney represented another defendant on appeal.
Prosecutor Adriane Love made it through about 20 minutes of openings before defense attorneys complained and the jury was asked to step out. They returned after lunch for the remainder of the state’s presentation.
Chief Judge Ural Glanville wasn’t pleased with the repeated delays.
“Ms. Love, I told you to give (the defense) your PowerPoint presentation,” he told the lead prosecutor outside the presence of the jury. “This is why you give it to them, so they can get errors and they can also figure out if there is something they object to.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Glanville ordered the attorneys to sort through any issues during the lunch break. But when court resumed, more issues were raised.
”We have wasted almost two hours trying to get this stuff done,” the judge told both sides. “My orders to you were not aspirational. They were given for a reason.”
In her opening remarks, Love painted for jurors a picture of a violent street gang responsible for vehicle and gun thefts, intimidation and the deadly shootings of three people: Donovan Thomas, Jamari Holmes and Shymel Drinks.
“YSL operated as a pack,” said Love, who started her presentation by reciting Rudyard Kipling’s “Law of the Jungle.”
“For 10 years and counting the group calling itself Young Slime Life dominated the Cleveland Avenue area of Fulton County,” Love said, arguing members of the group carried out illegal acts at Williams’ behest to “establish YSL’s dominance and control”
With Williams as its leader, Love alleged the gang “sucked in the youth, the innocence and even the lives of some of its youngest members.”
All six defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
The state says it expects to call about 400 witnesses and produce a massive amount of evidence to build its case, which prosecutors say is the culmination of more than a decade of investigation.
Prosecutors also plan to introduce at least 17 sets of rap lyrics they say pertain to real-world crimes allegedly committed by the group. Authorities argued some of the popular tracks glorified YSL’s alleged criminal activities, including the shootings of rival gang members, the targeting of others and violence against police. The lyrics themselves aren’t crimes, prosecutors have said, but evidence of alleged crimes.
“We didn’t chase the lyrics to solve a murder,” Love told the jury. “Law enforcement in Fulton County chased the murders and found the lyrics.”
Love told the jury that defendant Shannon Stillwell was wearing an ankle monitor that placed him at the BP on Cleveland Avenue around the time of Drinks’ March 2022 fatal shooting.
Stillwell faces two murder charges in the sprawling gang indictment, but his attorney, Max Schardt, said the state’s evidence relies heavily on the statements of four people he claims made up their stories from jail.
“Once they were wearing blue and they needed something, that’s when they came up with their stories.” Schardt said, referring to the color of Fulton County’s jumpsuits.
The trial resumes Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.
