Atlanta rapper Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffrey Lamar Williams, has accepted a plea deal and pleaded guilty to gang-related charges in Fulton County, Georgia.
Williams pleaded guilty in court Thursday afternoon.
“Is it your decision to waive those rights and plead guilty because you are guilty?” asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker.
“Yes,” Williams said before his attorney entered one of the lawsuits.
According to an ABC affiliate in Atlanta, WSB-TVwho was in the courtroom on Thursday, the rapper’s plea deal has not been negotiated, meaning the final sentencing decision is up to the judge.
He pleaded nolo contendere to two charges, including violating the RICO act, which is a plea to which there is no challenge or defense, meaning the defendant neither admits nor denies the charges against them, WSB-TV. notify.
The terms of the deal are unclear. ABC News has reached out to Williams’ attorney, Brian Steel, for additional comment.
Young Thug attends the 3rd Annual Diamond Ball on September 14, 2017 in New York City.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Williams was initially charged on May 10, 2022, with conspiracy to violate the state’s Racketeer Influencer and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and engaging in criminal street gang activity, and was later charged with participating in a street gang. activity, three counts of violating the Georgia controlled substance act, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a machine gun.
Before reaching the plea deal, Williams pleaded not guilty and his attorney repeatedly told ABC News that his client was innocent of all charges.
During the racketeering trial, which began in November 2023 and is Georgia’s longest ever, prosecutors alleged that the Grammy-winning rapper is the co-founder and “proclaimed ringleader” of an alleged criminal street gang in Fulton County. , Georgia, known as “Young Slime Life” or “YSL.”
“YSL members and members moved as a pack led by Jeffrey Williams,” Fulton County District Attorney Adriane Love said in opening statements.
Love said the alleged members of YSL had committed “criminal street gang activities”, meaning crimes aimed at furthering YSL’s purpose and carrying out its directives.
“For 10 years and counting, a group called Young Slime Life dominated the Cleveland Avenue community in Fulton County,” Love said Monday. “And it created a crater in the middle of the Cleveland Avenue community in Fulton County that sucked up youth, innocence, and even the lives of some of its youngest members.”
The Grammy-winning rapper was indicted in May 2022 in a major RICO indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. He was among 28 individuals, but was tried with five co-defendants after many of the defendants took plea deals, and the judge decided that others will be tried separately.
The rapper’s star power drew national attention in the case and prosecutors’ controversial use of his lyrics, as well as lyrics by some of his co-defendants, pushed alleged evidence in the case further into the national spotlight.
The use of the lyrics drew the ire of free speech advocates and prominent hip-hop musicians and producers, who argued that rap music and the writing process is a form of artistic expression and not necessarily a reflection of reality.
Prosecutors argued in the indictment that the social media posts, images and lyrics of various songs by various defendants, including Young Thug, are “manifest acts in furtherance of the conspiracy” to violate the RICO Act.
Although the scope of the accusations went far beyond the use of rap lyrics, the inclusion of the lyrics drew the ire of artists in the music industry and sparked a movement known as “Protect Black Art.”
Steele filed a motion in December 2022 asking Judge Ural Glanville, who was removed from the case after meeting with a witness and prosecutors, to stop prosecutors from using the letters as evidence.
Steele argued, “(Lyrics) cannot be used as evidence of crime if they are related to music/freedom of speech/freedom of expression/poetry.”
Glanville denied the motion in a November 2022 ruling, which ruled that 17 sets of letters cited in the indictment could be admitted in advance at trial.
“I am conditionally accepting those pending letters on a basis, or a basis, properly established by the state or the developer who wants to accept that evidence,” Glanville said.
The judge added that if prosecutors intend to introduce additional letters as part of the alleged evidence in this case, they may be submitted for judicial review.
