When Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug stepped up to a courtroom podium Thursday to give a non-negotiated plea in his gang and racketeering conspiracy case in Atlanta, it was a gamble that paid off.
Without any safety net in the form of a signed deal with prosecutors, the artist born Jeffery Williams pleaded “no contest” to his two top charges alleging he was the fearsome kingpin of a criminal street gang called Young Slime Life. He then pleaded guilty to all six of his remaining charges, including one count admitting participation in a street gang. He was immediately sentenced to time served and released on 15 years of probation in a stunning turn of events after spending the last two and a half years languishing in jail amid the longest trial in Georgia state history.
Three of Williams’ five RICO trial co-defendants already had pleaded out over the prior week with negotiated deals prompted by an evidence mishap last week. But Williams entered his plea amid ongoing conflict with Fulton County prosecutors. Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love read aloud more than a dozen lines of lyrics attributed to Williams that she said claimed were overt acts in furtherance of a criminal enterprise. She accused Williams of helping orchestrate a murder and recommended he spend 25 years in prison.
Williams’ longtime defense lawyer, Brian Steel, spent more than 35 minutes methodically attacking the state’s theory of the case. Steel called Love’s recitation of lyrics “offensive,” blasted the state’s alleged “misrepresentation” of evidence and said he believed Williams was “winning” and should continue fighting for an acquittal.
“It was certainly aggressive,” Joshua Schiffer, a criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta who’s been following the case, tells Rolling Stone. “It’s a humongous gamble to place an entire sentence in the hands of a judge, especially one who was a former prosecutor and who sends people to prison all the time. And it’s a giant risk to talk too much during a plea. You can talk a judge out of doing what you want. Brian Steel obviously had a lot of confidence the judge would be receptive to the defense argument that the state had overstated their case.”
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After Steel finished his address Thursday, Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sentenced Williams to a punishment that didn’t even include Williams’ offer to spend three years on house arrest with an ankle monitor. She said it wasn’t lost on her that shortly before plea negotiations broke down, prosecutors had been willing to entirely dismiss Williams’ RICO conspiracy count, one of his two gang counts and a count for possession of a machine gun. (According to Steel, the talks reached an impasse over the conditions prosecutors wanted, including his admission he was the leader of a criminal street gang.)
Here are five times Steel accused prosecutors of distorting evidence and misunderstanding the music industry during his final address to the court before sentencing Thursday:
During her opening statement in the case last November, Love made it clear lyrics would be evidence in the case. “We didn’t chase the lyrics to solve the murder, we chased the murder and found the lyrics,” she said. On Thursday, she recited line after line listed in the indictment, including several from Young Thug’s 2020 song “Take It to Trial” with fellow rappers Gunna and Yak Gotti. From Young Thug’s 2018 song “Anybody” featuring Nicki Minaj, Love recited the lines, “I never killed anybody, but I got something to do with that body,” and “I told them to shoot a hundred rounds.”
“The fact that the state has put in Mr. Williams lyrics is offensive. Mr. Williams has tens of thousands of recordings,” Steel told the court Thursday. “Some of the lyrics you just heard are not even uttered by Mr. Williams. The state has no idea when these lyrics were made.” Indeed, one of the lines recited by Love on Thursday – “Watch me whack that bitch, pop ‘em like a cyst, Glock with the assist” – was rapped by Gunna in “Take It To Trial.” Another line in the same song, “For slimes you know I kill,” is rapped by Yak Gotti.
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“That’s not even said by Mr. Williams, but they don’t care to find out. They are on tunnel vision to try to convict a man who should not be convicted,” Steel said. “The statement about, ‘I never killed nobody, but I got something to do with that body.” If the state just bothered to talk to anybody, that is a Nicki Minaj song … written by Nicki Minaj.”
2. The 2015 Shooting of Lil Wayne’s Tour Bus
Love told the court Thursday that prosecutors believed they could prove Williams was in a legitimately violent feud with Lil Wayne at the time of the May 2015 bus shooting after Williams said he planned to name his next album Carter VI while Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Carter Jr., was still working on Tha Carter V. Love told the court that Williams was threatened with litigation over the name and said “derogatory things about the persons threatening him with the lawsuit.” She also said that Jimmy Winfrey, the man ultimately convicted of shooting the bus, was captured on at least one jail call with an alleged member of YSL talking about his need for a lawyer.
Steel told the court that prosecutors were mistaken. “Mr. Wiliams had no conflict with [Lil] Wayne. They are friends,” he said, adding that Williams’ comments at the time were designed to “drum up popularity and interest.” He said had the trial continued, he would have brought in members of Williams’ team to testify that they encouraged Williams to “start a rap battle, it will be better for your career.” Steel said that Lil Wayne has subsequently confirmed in interviews that he considers Williams a friend who “idolizes” him. “They did an album together. In 2014, they’re in the studio together, making music together. It is all made up that Mr. Williams is involved [in the shooting],” he said. He said Williams even gave a voluntary statement to police calling the tour bus shooting “outrageous.”
“What the state of Georgia has presented to this jury in this courtroom the past year has been full of untruths and they know it,” Steel told the judge. He added that authorities had “zero” evidence Williams gave any assistance to Winfrey.
3. Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Diamond on His Head
In the state’s indictment, Williams is accused of engaging in a Feb. 2021 “conversation” with two other alleged YSL gang members in which he stated, “YSL rule the world kid. 24m on a n—- head.” Steel attacked this accusation in his statement to the court even though Love didn’t bring it up. He said the state appeared to abandon the allegation after learning from the defense that it was a reference to fellow hip-hop artist Lil Uzi Vert.
“The state put that in the indictment, [that Williams] put out a call for murder – put a $24 million murder for hire [contact] on a person’s head. That is a lot of money. And that is awful. If they would have read the chat, the Instagram chat, right above it, there’s a picture of a very well-known, very accomplished musical artist [Lil Uzi Vert] who actually had surgically implanted in his forehead a pink diamond worth $24 million that day,” Steel said. “That’s what Mr. Williams was talking about. That’s the type of evidence coming from the state of Georgia in this case. It is wrong. This is all wrong. I know we’re pleading guilty, and I know we’re pleading no contest … but this is the type of evidence there is. It is holding this man hostage.”
4. His Relationship With Rich Homie Quan
Love told the court Thursday that prosecutors believe Williams rented the gray Infinity that allegedly was used in the Jan. 10, 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas, the crime at the center of the indictment that purportedly set off a full-blown war between YSL and Thomas’ alleged gang, Inglewood Family. She alleged that phone evidence suggested Williams spoke with alleged YSL members just minutes after Donovan was gunned down outside a barbershop and that he gave money to alleged YSL members to “lay low” in Miami afterward.
Williams grimaced in protest Thursday when Love made the allegations related to Thomas.
“Mr. Williams has nothing but empathy, sympathy, and sorrow. They were friends. It is a lie. What the prosecution has put before this jury is a lie,” Steel said, referring to the state’s theory Williams played a role in the murder. “What happens here is that the prosecution comes up with a theory because they need a motive,” he said.
Steel said prosecutors tried to portray Williams as an enemy of Rich Homie Quan, a fellow rapper who died last month, without realizing the men were “close” friends. “The state tried to make it in this case that Mr. Williams and Rich Homie Quan are enemies because Rich Homie Quan will not sign with a record label that has nothing to do with Mr. Williams. The state wants it to be that Donovan Thomas interceded and would not let Rich Homie Quan sign to Bryan ‘Birdman’ Williams, and that is the reason Jeffery Williams had a feud and killed Donovan Thomas.”
Steel said if the trial continued, he would have shown evidence that Williams and Rich Homie Quan were friends who hung out and traveled together in December 2014. He said other evidence would show Williams was friends with Thomas as well and grieved his death. He said just days before Thomas was gunned down, he was hanging out with Williams on Birdman’s tour bus in Atlanta. “They were very close,” he said.
5. His Alleged Rivalry With YFN Lucci
Love told the court Thursday that prosecutors believe Williams proved his animosity for Inglewood Family members when he posted an image on social media, tagged fellow rapper and alleged IF Gang member YFN Lucci and wrote, “yfn if ain like what u do for your mother and kids I WOULDVE BEEN KILLED U.” In the indictment, this Aug. 2019 post was described as an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Speaking Thursday, Love said it was shared online not long after a shooting in the alleged gang war between YSL and IF Gang.
In his follow-up address to the court, Steel said Williams only shared the Instagram post in question after YFN Lucci, born Rayshawn Bennett, started taunting him in a purported attempt to generate publicity. “Mr. Williams is a much more high-profile artist than Mr. Bennet at that time, and Mr. Bennet is saying that he slept with Mr. Williams’ fiancé while Mr. Williams and she are a significant couple – and that Mr. Wiliams’ music is awful, that nobody should listen to his music ever.
“Mr. Williams responds by saying, ‘We can do an album together if you want. Stop this.’ The man continues, [claiming] he’s sleeping with Mr. Williams’ significant other, and then Mr. Williams responds,” Steel said. “That is the context that they don’t tell you about. Mr. Williams did nothing to Mr. Bennett. In fact, the evidence would have shown if we had time or it would have gone forward that Mr. Bennett and Mr. Williams are on a red carpet, receiving awards in California, sitting right next to each other, and taking photographs.”
After Love and Steel presented their dueling versions of the facts, Williams, 33, addressed the court. “I’ve learned from my mistakes. I come from nothing, and I’ve made something, and I didn’t take full advantage of it. I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope you will find it in your heart to allow me to go home and be with my family and just do better as a person. I know what I bring to the table. I know what I am. I know the heights I’ve reached. I know the impact I got on people in the community.”
Judge Whitaker then sentenced him to time served, 15 years of probation, and a “backloaded” consecutive sentence of 20 years that only kicks in if he violates probation.
“I appreciate that you do realize how much of an impact you do have on people,” Whitaker told Williams after he addressed the court. “Having come up from where you came up from, and living in and around that, you know that gangs are damaging to our community.”
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She then said the rap industry “sounds like a modern-day version of WWE Wrestling that used to be on television, where people would get up and posture and act like they hated each other. …But whether it’s fake or not, it has tremendous impact on kids and young people who think this is cool: ‘This is what I want to do. Look at him, he’s a millionaire. I can do that by being a gangster in the streets.’ And that’s not true. What you’re likely to have happen to you if you’re a gangster in the streets is, you get shot, you get killed, or you get thrown in prison. And those are by far the most likely outcomes.”
She said if Williams continued in his rap career, “You need to try to use your influence to let kids know that that is not the way to go, and there are ways out of poverty besides hooking up with the powerful guy at the end of the street selling drugs. I know that happens for protection sometimes, but a much better way would be getting an education and hanging around with people who sets a good example. And you be one of those people who sets a good example.”
