What’s the public left to think?
Back in May 2022, when Atlanta rap star Young Thug was arrested, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told us gangs were “committing, conservatively, 75 to 80% of all of the violent crime that we are seeing within our community.”
Those numbers were likely pulled straight out of her ear. But if you’re a politician facing rows of TV cameras, you might as well go big.
We were also told that Thugger, aka Jeffery Williams, was the leader of a violent street gang, one involved in drugs, armed robberies and shootings, leaving dead bodies in Atlanta’s streets. He was charged, along with 27 others, in a wide-ranging racketeering indictment, a sweep that included fellow rappers, many hardened criminals and several cold-eyed killers.
But last week, Young Thug was set free after pleading guilty to several criminal counts and vaguely admitting he was tied to some bad stuff, although we really don’t know exactly what. In fact, his attorneys say little, if any of it, was true.
And that leads to the question: If he was a crime kingpin, a dastardly, scheming overlord of a murderous crew, then how does he leave confinement so readily?
The Grammy winning rapper was sentenced to 15 years of probation, was banished from Atlanta for a decade, and had a 5-year prison sentence erased due to serving 30 months in jail since his arrest.
Steve Schaefer
Steve Schaefer
Young Thug pleaded guilty to one gang charge, two gun charges (including owning a machine gun) and three drug charges. He also pleaded nolo contendere (which is Latin for “I think you guys got me on this one but I’m not gonna cop to it”) to the RICO charge and a charge of leading a criminal enterprise.
Still, he is out to rap again.
(Interestingly, all the RICO defendants were held without bond after arrest because they were deemed too dangerous. But a handful of them, including Sergio Kitchens, AKA the rapper Gunna, were released on probation after simply admitting that YSL was a gang. Young Thug has argued it’s merely a record label.)
Young Thug’s sentence from Judge Paige Reese Whitaker came after a remarkable week of negotiations and pleas, not only from the star defendant, but from three of his codefendants.
What likely kicked off the pleas (which largely were lenient given the severity of the charges) was that the judge was considering issuing a mistrial after — yet another — blunder on the state’s part.
Earlier, witness Slimelife Shawty (the nicknames have been entertaining) had read an unredacted piece of evidence during testimony, causing one of the defendant’s attorneys to demand a mistrial.
Whitaker was no doubt exasperated. She had already sent prosecutors to remedial legal education (no kidding) to remind them how to properly share evidence with the defense.
Earlier, during one of her many scolds, she told prosecutors: “What I’m trying to do is fix your sloppiness so that everyone won’t have wasted, you know, 10, 12 months of their lives in this trial.”
Seeger Gray / AJC
Seeger Gray / AJC
If the judge had declared a mistrial, the whole trial — which started in January 2023 and is already the longest in Georgia history — would have started all over from scratch. I’m sure the rapper, as did the others, finally thought: “Let me out of here!”
Young Thug took a blind plea, which means he was throwing his future on the mercy of the court. Perhaps he and his attorneys, Brian Steel and Keith Adams, felt the judge had grown weary of the prosecution and might not be so harsh.
The prosecution asked Whitaker to lock him up for 25 years. However, Steel told the judge that the prosecution was going to release his client with 15 years probation if he agreed to “special conditions,” apparently agreeing that he was indeed a gang kingpin. But Young Thug refused.
While coming up with the sentence, Whitaker noted “it is not lost on the court” that prosecutors in the previous plea offer called for probation. This means they were “willing to give a sentence that permitted Mr. Williams to walk out of the door today and therefore (do) not seem to be particularly worried that Mr. Williams, if on the streets, would be a danger to society.”
The DA’s office issued a statement saying “the convictions in this case represent accountability for admitted members of YSL, a violent street gang” and that the judge issued the sentence.
Charlie Bailey, a former Fulton gang crimes prosecutor and Willis ally, told me “there’s value if he did this in a full-throated plea, to fully take responsibility. It’s important to the community to see that. That is not a throw-away thing.”
Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Young Thug did not give that “full-throated” acknowledgment, but he has a 20-year “back-loaded” prison sentence awaiting him if he screws up on probation.
“And that ain’t nothing,” said Bailey.
He said violent gang crime is down, a fact noted in a story that aired on WSB-TV right as Young Thug’s plea was going down. Coincidence, says the DA’s office.
Before sentencing, as his future lay in question, Young Thug was contrite. His team had argued his gangsta ways had been largely an act, a persona to peddle his music.
He said he understands the impact his lyrics might have on impressionable youth.
“I understand how rap lyrics can be twisted,” he told the judge. “I promise you I’m 100% changing that. I’m older. I’m grown now. There’s more things to rap about.”
I’m sensing a PG-rated version of Young Thug is about to be unleased on the music industry.
Young Straight Arrow?
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