Young Thug's long-running criminal trial returns with jury and reluctant star witness
A new judge, a "hostile" star witness and another mistrial request kicked off the jury's return Monday to the racketeering and gun conspiracy trial of Atlanta rapper Young Thug after a nearly two-month hiatus.
The case has become Georgia’s longest-running criminal trial since it began with jury selection in January 2023, dragging on through multiple delays and unexpected turns that threatened to unravel the proceedings entirely.
Superior Court Judge Paige Whitaker welcomed Fulton County jurors back to the high-profile trial, making quick mention that she is the new judge while skirting around why her predecessor, Judge Ural Glanville, was removed from the case last month.
"You are not to concern yourself with this change," Whitaker told the jury.
"The decisions and remarks of a judge do not mean the judge favors or leans to one side or another in this case," she added.
This month, as Whitaker prepared to take over the trial and reviewed several motions, including ones by defense lawyers calling for a mistrial, prosecutors noted that they still have 105 more witnesses to go, on top of the 75 who have already testified. The trial could conceivably stretch into next year, the judge noted.
Jurors had been out of the courtroom since June, when the prosecution was in the midst of presenting its case and a surprise disclosure involving Glanville prompted a motion for his recusal.
Fulton County prosecutors are using Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, statute against the Grammy-winning rap star and five other co-defendants in a sprawling indictment from more than two years ago. The county’s prosecutors are also involved in a separate case that has similarly stalled against former President Donald Trump on state racketeering charges related to the 2020 election.
During an interview last week with an internet influencer, Trump weighed in on Young Thug's trial as it's being handled by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
"I heard the name," Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said of the popular hip-hop artist. "I heard it from other people that he’s being treated unfairly. So, he’s got to be treated fairly.”
Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, has been jailed since his arrest in May 2022 on charges of conspiracy and criminal street gang activity, plus additional firearm- and drug-related charges.
The indictment accused Young Thug, 32, of leading a street gang, Young Slime Life, or YSL, with members allegedly committing illegal and violent acts, including murder, armed robbery, drug dealing and carjacking. Twenty-seven other co-defendants were also named — an unusually high number for a case, prompting some of the initial delays in the trial.
Opening statements finally began in November 2023, after several defendants had already taken plea deals while others chose to be tried separately from Young Thug.
In June, Young Thug’s lawyer, Brian Steel, filed a recusal motion for Glanville, claiming that a private meeting between the judge and prosecutors on June 10 with Kenneth Copeland, one of the star witnesses, was “improper” because the defense was excluded. Such meetings without all parties present could be seen as unfavorable because it could allow for witness tampering.
The accusation led Glanville to hold Steel in contempt of court when he refused to divulge who told him about the meeting. Steel was ordered to spend weekends in jail as punishment, but he is appealing the contempt finding.
Steel had also filed a motion for a mistrial, writing that the trial had become “Constitutionally broken” because of the incident.
Both Glanville and prosecutors denied misconduct, and the judge halted the trial on July 1 to allow another judge to decide whether he should recuse himself. That judge agreed he should. A second judge put on the case, however, recused herself because of her association with a former courtroom deputy who was arrested last year for allegedly trying to smuggle contraband to a co-defendant in the trial.
Whitaker was assigned to the trial in mid-July. She denied the various mistrial motions and a new request for Young Thug to be released on bond.
Fulton County prosecutors had presented the case against Young Thug and his alleged YSL associates — accused of being affiliated with the national Bloods gang — as a way to combat the unrelenting violence in their south Atlanta neighborhood.
When jurors were brought back to the trial on Monday, Whitaker asked them to disregard previous testimony by Copeland and had prosecutors start their questioning anew.
Copeland, a former Young Thug associate who was given immunity for his testimony in the case, twisted in his chair repeatedly on the stand and replied “I don’t recall” scores of times as he was asked about what he told police in the wake of a 2015 fatal shooting that has been a focus of the trial.
“You asking me for the truth,” Copeland told prosecutor Simone Hylton. “I keep telling you, I will tell detectives whatever they wanted to hear or whatever they wanted me to to say to get out of my situation.”
At one point, Hylton said: "If you can answer the question truthfully, then we can move forward. Can we do that?"
“I don’t recall,” Copeland responded.
Copeland also testified that a detective in the case was gullible and "his brain was the size of a squirrel brain," which led the prosecution to ask the judge to treat him as a "hostile witness," which Whitaker granted.
Hylton's line of questioning also led Steel to call for a mistrial, but Whitaker asked her to be "more artful" in her approach with Copeland.
Young Thug first gained mainstream success with his 2014 drug anthem “Stoner” and has worked with artists such as Travis Scott, Post Malone, Meek Mill and Drake. He also racked up three No. 1 albums on the Billboard chart and won a Grammy Award in 2019 for song of the year for co-writing Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.”
His trial has become fodder for social media, as it has been livestreamed and witnesses on the stand appear uninterested, uncooperative or combative at times. If found guilty, Young Thug and his co-defendants faced prison sentences of five to 20 years on the various charges.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
