By CHARLOTTE KRAMON, Related Press/Report for America
ATLANTA (AP) — The long-running gang and racketeering trial in Atlanta that led rapper Younger Thug to plead responsible in October ended on Tuesday with a jury discovering the final two defendants not responsible of homicide and gang-related fees.
Deamonte Kendrick, who raps as Yak Gotti, was acquitted of all fees and Shannon Stillwell was discovered responsible solely of a gun possession cost. The verdicts got here almost two years after jury choice started and a yr after opening statements in a trial plagued with issues.
The unique, sweeping indictment charged 28 folks with conspiring to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and used tune lyrics and social media posts as proof. Younger Thug, a Grammy-winning artist whose actual title is Jeffery Williams, was let loose on probation after he pleaded responsible in October to gang, drug and gun fees when negotiations with prosecutors broke down.
Kendrick and Stillwell had been charged within the 2015 killing of Donovan Thomas Jr., also called “Large Nut,” who prosecutors say was in a rival gang. Stillwell was additionally charged within the 2022 dying of Shymel Drinks, who prosecutors say was killed in retaliation for the killings days earlier of two associates in a gang often known as YSL, which they are saying was co-founded by Younger Thug.
Thomas was killed in a drive-by capturing exterior an Atlanta barbershop. Within the different killing, prosecutors alleged Stillwell pulled up subsequent to Drinks and shot three rounds into his automobile.
Stillwell was sentenced to the 10-year most for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon beforehand convicted of a felony involving a gun, with credit score for the 2 years he already served and the stability to be served on probation.
Whereas a complete of 4 defendants pleaded responsible earlier than the tip of the trial, the decision for the ultimate two was a serious setback for Fulton County District Lawyer Fani Willis. Critics had criticized her use of the state’s anti-racketeering legislation, which she additionally used to carry fees in opposition to President-elect Donald Trump for his makes an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
“We all the time respect the decision of a jury,” stated Jeff DiSantis, a spokesman for Fulton County District Lawyer Fani Willis.
Protection attorneys criticized the state for counting on tune lyrics, saying they had been among the many defective proof prosecutors slapped collectively together with cherry-picked social media posts and unreliable witness testimony to create a deceptive narrative about younger males who turned to music to flee financial hardship and troublesome pasts.
Prosecutors say Williams and two others in 2012 based Younger Slime Life, which they stated was related to the nationwide Bloods gang. The 33-year-old artist additionally has a report label known as Younger Stoner Life. Kendrick is featured on two of the preferred songs from the label’s compilation album Slime Language 2, “Take It to Trial” and “Slatty,” in addition to Younger Thug’s “Slime Sh-t,” which prosecutors introduced as proof at trial.
Williams entered a dangerous “blind” plea — that means he pleaded responsible with out an settlement on his sentence — in October. Choose Paige Reese Whitaker let him out of jail on probation with tight restrictions, together with a 10-year ban from metro Atlanta aside from sure events.
The trial has been fraught with issues and delays and shook Atlanta’s rap scene. Williams grew up in an Atlanta housing undertaking ridden with violence and have become a extremely profitable artist who added his personal melodic twist to the fashionable Southern entice sound he helped popularize.
Together with utilizing lyrics and posts to show that YSL was a gang, Kendrick’s legal professional Doug Weinstein stated throughout closing arguments that prosecutors threw collectively random alleged crimes “see what sticks” however didn’t show they had been related to a legal enterprise.
Whereas defendants did commit crimes previously, protection legal professional Max Schardt stated, it was to make cash for themselves in communities stripped of financial alternative — to not advance a gang. And music let a few of them transfer on.
“As an entire, we all know the struggles that these communities have had,” Schardt stated. “A tragic, tacit acceptance that it’s both rap, jail or dying.”
Schardt sought to forged doubts on gang investigators and YSL associates the state introduced in as witnesses. A number of alleged YSL members testified that they had lied to police to remain out of jail, and Schardt stated officers had threatened them with lengthy jail sentences in the event that they didn’t say the correct factor. He advised a kind of witnesses may have killed Thomas.
Prosecutors stated these witnesses had been trustworthy with police however lied on the stand, in entrance of the folks that they had “snitched” on. And the testimonies are corroborated by different proof similar to songs and social media posts the place they stated defendants had been “bragging about homicide.”
Prosecutors stated Stillwell and Kendrick had been within the automobile used within the drive-by capturing that killed Thomas and that Stillwell’s social media posts point out he was concerned.
Protection lawyer Doug Weinstein stated there was no proof that Kendrick ever bought in that automobile, however relatively surveillance footage exhibits he was in his personal automobile across the time of the capturing. Prosecutors stated that Kendrick switched vehicles off digital camera and that he was the one who informed his counterparts the place Thomas was, making him chargeable for his dying.
Prosecutors and protection attorneys had conflicting interpretations of the distant surveillance footage in Drinks’ homicide. Stillwell pulled up subsequent to Drinks’ automobile and fired three rounds into his automobile, then sped away, prosecutors stated. The protection stated Stillwell drove away earlier than Drinks was shot and that there was no gunshot residue in Stillwell’s automobile.
Jury choice for the trial took almost 10 months, and Stillwell was stabbed final yr on the Fulton County jail, which suspended trial proceedings. Kendrick was stabbed Sunday in jail.
Fulton County Superior Court docket Choose Ural Glanville was eliminated from the case in July after protection attorneys filed a movement to recuse him based mostly on a gathering he had with prosecutors and a state witness with out protection attorneys current. When Whitaker took over, she reprimanded the prosecution for being disorganized and never sharing proof.
Brian Metal, Younger Thug’s legal professional, stated he needed to proceed with the trial as a result of he believed they had been profitable, however the rapper stated that sitting in courtroom felt like “hell” and that he needed to go dwelling to his household.
9 folks charged within the indictment, together with Gunna, accepted plea offers earlier than the trial started. Prices in opposition to 12 others stay pending. Prosecutors dropped fees in opposition to one defendant after he was convicted of homicide in an unrelated case.
Kramon is a corps member for The Related Press/Report for America Statehouse Information Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit nationwide service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points. Comply with Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.
Initially Revealed: