One of the 12 remaining defendants awaiting trial in the “Young Slime Life” case took a plea deal Wednesday.
Jimmy Winfrey pleaded guilty to violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, a drug and gun charge. A gang charge was dismissed as part of the plea deal.
He was sentenced to 10 years, commuted to time served after spending 16 months in jail, with the remaining of his sentence on probation.
Winfrey wasn’t part of the first trial, which ended with multiple plea deals and a not guilty verdict on all but one charge on Tuesday, after he was severed from the case back in December 2022 because he had not been arrested yet. He was arrested July 2023 in Las Vegas, Rolling Stone reported. He was booked in Fulton County in August 2023.
Prosecutors alleged Winfrey, who goes by Peewee Roscoe, committed crimes in furtherance of the gang including shooting at Lil Wayne’s tour bus in 2015. Winfrey was originally convicted of the bus shooting but the Georgia Supreme Court later reversed that conviction, after ruling that a Cobb County judge had implied Winfrey would get a harsher sentence if he passed on taking a plea deal.
Police said Winfrey was driving a white Camaro when he pulled up on Lil Wayne’s tour bus along a section of I-285 in Cobb County and began shooting. In 2020, Winfrey entered an Alford plea, which allows defendants to plead guilty but maintain their innocence, on the charges relating to the bus shooting and was released on time served, after spending five years in jail.
Fulton County prosecutors then indicted him along with Atlanta rapper Young Thug and 26 other defendants on May 2022 on RICO and gang charges. Winfrey is the latest defendant indicted to resolve his case, after Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, pleaded guilty on Halloween night and two other defendants, Deamonte Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell, were acquitted of RICO, murder and gang charges Tuesday. Stillwell was found guilty on a gun charge.
As part of his plea deal, he is not allowed to have any contact with his co-defendants outside of a working environment. Judge Paige Reese Whitaker encouraged Winfrey to take this opportunity to turn his life around.
“You are in an industry where a whole lot of young people watch with great attention every detail of everything y’all do on and off stage and with that kind of stuff of influence and audience, you really should be trying to set a good example,” Whitaker told Winfrey, who works as an entertainment manager and vowed to follow Whitaker’s advice.
After the trial against Kendrick and Stillwell concluded, Judge Whitaker held a status hearing for 10 of the remaining 11 defendants. The final defendant in the case, Justin Cobb, is not in custody.
She encouraged attorneys from both sides to see if plea deals are possible ahead of a final plea hearing on December 17. Prosecutors will have until December 13 to submit plea offers.
About the Author
