Atlanta rapper Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffrey Lamar Williams, has accepted a plea deal, changing his plea to guilty on gang-related charges in Fulton County, Georgia.
Williams pleaded guilty in court Thursday afternoon.
He was sentenced to prison and 15 years of probation and is expected to be released Thursday to house arrest.
“Is it your decision to waive those rights and plead guilty because you are in fact guilty?” asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker.
“Yes,” Williams said before his attorney weighed in on one of the charges.
According to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV, which was in the courtroom Thursday, the rapper’s plea deal is non-negotiated, meaning the final sentencing decision rests with the judge. .
He pleaded nolo contestere to two charges, including violation of the RICO Act, which is a plea of no contest or no defense, meaning the defendant neither admits nor denies the charges against him, WSB-TV reported.
Williams’ attorney Brian Steel, his co-counsel and Williams’ father spoke outside the courthouse after the hearing. Steel said it wasn’t the verdict he was hoping for but “it’s justice for Jeffrey Williams, and he’s thrilled as are we, I’m grateful.”
Jeffrey Williams Sr. also addressed his son’s plea deal, saying, “I feel good about him going home, but at the same time, I still wanted him to fight but it’s his decision. It’s his decision. You know?”
Young Thug attends the 3rd Annual Diamond Ball in New York on September 14, 2017.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Williams was initially charged on May 10, 2022, with one count each of conspiracy to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and engaging in criminal activities of street gangs, and was subsequently charged with an additional count of participating in street gangs. activity, three counts of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, possession of a firearm while committing a felony and possession of a machine gun.
Before the plea deal was reached, Williams pleaded not guilty and his attorney repeatedly told ABC News that his client was innocent of all charges.
Throughout the racketeering trial, which began in November 2023 and has been the longest trial in Georgia so far, prosecutors have alleged that the Grammy-winning rapper was the co-founder and “leader proclaimed” of an alleged criminal street gang in Fulton County. , Georgia, known as “Young Slime Life” or “YSL”.
“The members and associates of YSL moved like a pack with Jeffrey Williams at the helm,” Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love said during her opening statement.
Love claimed that the alleged YSL members committed “criminal street gang activities, that is, crimes intended to further the goals and directives of YSL itself.”
“For ten years, the group calling itself Young Slime Life dominated the Cleveland Avenue community in Fulton County,” Love said Monday. “And created a crater in the middle of the Cleveland Avenue community in Fulton County that sucked the youth, innocence and even life out of some of its youngest members.”
The Grammy-winning rapper was charged in May 2022 in a sprawling RICO indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. He was among 28 people charged, but he was tried with five co-defendants after several of those charged reached plea deals, while the judge ruled the others would be tried separately.
The rapper’s star power brought national attention to the case, and the prosecutor’s controversial use of his lyrics, as well as lyrics performed by some of his defendants, as alleged evidence in the case propelled him under the national spotlight.
The use of lyrics has sparked outrage from free speech advocates and prominent musicians and producers in the hip-hop world, who have argued that rap music and the writing process are a form of expression artistic and do not necessarily reflect reality.
Prosecutors argued in the indictment that social media posts, images and various song lyrics posted by several defendants, including Young Thug, are “overt acts intended to further the conspiracy” to rape the RICO Act.
Although the scope of the indictment went well beyond the use of rap lyrics, the inclusion of lyrics sparked outrage among artists in the music industry and helped spark a movement known under the name “Protect Black Art”.
Steel filed a motion in December 2022 asking Judge Ural Glanville, who was removed from the case after meeting with a witness and prosecutors, to block prosecutors from using the lyrics as evidence.
Steel argued that “[Lyrics] cannot be used as evidence of a crime if it is simply related to music/free speech/free speech/poetry. »
Glanville denied the motion in a November 2022 ruling, in which he determined that 17 sets of lyrics mentioned in the indictment could be admitted as a pretrial at trial.
“I admit these pending words under certain conditions, depending on or subject to a foundation properly laid by the State or the proponent seeking to admit this evidence,” Glanville said.
