Atlanta rapper Young Thug will be released from prison after pleading guilty Thursday to gang, drug and weapons charges.
The Grammy-winning artist, 33, whose given name is Jeffery Williams, admitted to six charges, including one gang charge, three drug charges and two weapons charges, following a lengthy trial that began last November.
He also pleaded no contest to another gang charge and a racketeering conspiracy charge, meaning he decided not to contest those charges but can be punished for them as if he had pleaded guilty.
“I take full responsibility for my crimes and my charges,” Williams told Judge Paige Whitaker before sentencing. according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“I hope you’ll let me go home and trust me to do the right thing.”
Jeffery Williams, also known as Young Thug, will be released on probation after pleading guilty Thursday to gang, drug and weapons charges.
Williams had pleaded guilty without reaching a deal with prosecutors after negotiations between the two sides broke down, leaving it up to the judge to determine how long he should be sentenced.
State prosecutors recommended a sentence of 45 years, 25 of which would be behind bars and 20 years of probation.
They had previously presented a more lenient deal of only 15 years of probation if Williams agreed to special conditions and would “assume ownership and responsibility of being the leader of YSL,” his record label, which prosecutors claimed was also a street gang. reports the New York Times.
But Williams rejected the offer and his lead attorney, Brian Steel, said they “vehemently disagree” with many of the statements prosecutors have made and argued it was “offensive” that the state was using Young Thug’s lyrics in his against.
Steel went on to say that the evidence against his client is weak and accused prosecutors of distorting and concealing evidence.
“Your entire being is trying to break the chains of poverty for others and this has been woven in this room with false statements and accusations against Mr. Williams at every turn,” Steel argued, while accusing authorities of having a ” “tunnel vision” in trying to take down a famous rapper.
Steel even said he told his client that he thought they were winning the trial and that they should reach a jury verdict.
“But he told me, ‘I can’t wait another three months if there’s any chance of coming home because I have kids that are hurting. I have things to do,'” Steel said, alleging that Williams accepted the guilty plea because the lengthy trial was “holding this man hostage.”
The judge ultimately sentenced him to 15 years of probation and imposed several conditions, including staying away from the city of Atlanta for 10 years except for weddings and funerals, according to the Journal Constitution.
Prosecutors had claimed that Williams ran a street gang in Atlanta even as his music career was taking off.
Cameras captured Williams’ arrest in May of last year and his booking into the Fulton County Jail.
Williams was charged in May 2022 along with more than two dozen others with conspiring to violate Georgia’s racketeering law by promoting the goals of YSL, Williams’ record label that authorities said also operated as a gang.
The rapper was also charged with drugs and weapons, and faced 120 years in prison on all charges.
Jury selection at the Atlanta courthouse began in January 2023 and lasted nearly 10 months.
Opening statements in his trial began nearly a year ago, in November 2023, when prosecutors described Williams as a gangster who called himself King Slime, the leader of a gang that terrorized the streets of Atlanta with gang wars, robberies and drugs. offers for almost a decade before his music career took off.
Prosecutors have since called dozens of witnesses as they argued that Young Thug was pulling the strings as the main financier of the YSL street gang, whose dominance and influence was bolstered by its members’ rap careers and granted them credibility.
They had sought to show that disputes between YSL and the local Bloods gang led to more than 50 violent encounters since 2015, focusing on the January murder of Donovan Thomas Jr, also known as Nut, in a drive-by shooting.
Prosecutors focused on the 2015 shooting death of Donovan Thomas Jr, also known as Nut.
The state had claimed that Thomas, a former friend and ally of YSL, had been the leader of the Inglewood Family Bloods.
Although Yak Gotti’s Deamonte Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell, or SB or Shannon Jackson, were charged with his murder, prosecutors sought to show that Williams authorized the shooting, rented the car they used and then provided safe harbor in Miami to the suspects. responsible.
They also claimed that the two sides regularly engaged in retaliatory shootings throughout the city in the following years.
Defense attorneys, however, insisted that YSL was simply a successful rap group born of poverty and struggle in violent neighborhoods, which they exaggerated into giving them a gangster image for their music and videos in an effort to generate sales.
They fought unsuccessfully to stop prosecutors from using rap lyrics as supporting evidence, but Fulton County Assistant Prosecutor Adriane Love argued, “We didn’t go after the lyrics to solve the murder, we went after the murder and found the lyrics.” ,’ while pointing out lines from Young Thug’s music that his office said corresponded to real-world violence.
Judge Paige Whitaker sentenced Young Thug on Thursday to 15 years of probation.
However, the trial continued to be plagued by the stabbing of Stillwell in jail and a flood of reluctant and confused witnesses.
At one point, the judge in the case had to recuse himself and was replaced by Judge Whitaker, who indicated he wanted to quickly end the trial.
He was arrested again last week following the state’s questioning of Wunnie Lee, a rapper who performs as SlimeLife Shawty.
He was asked to read aloud an Instagram post that was submitted into evidence but was not properly redacted, which defense attorneys say provided damaging information about one of the defendants.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys then spent days negotiating plea deals, leading to three other co-defendants also pleading guilty this week.
Nine others had accepted plea deals before the trial began, and prosecutors dropped charges against one defendant after he was found guilty of murder in an unrelated case.
In the meantime, Kendrick and Stillwell say they plan to continue taking their cases to trial.
“Yak Gotti has rejected the state’s latest plea offer and has every intention of taking this to the jury and getting our not guilty verdict and going home,” said his attorney, Douglas Weinstein.