The young interlocutor’s co-defendant enters into a plea agreement in the YSL trial

One of the co-defendants charged in the YSL gang and racketeering conspiracy took a surprise plea deal on Tuesday in a move that could change course Young Thughis troubled process.

Quamarvious Nichols, 29, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate Georgia’s RICO act in a deal with prosecutors that dropped six other charges, including one count of murder and several weapons charges. Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker immediately sentenced Nichols to his negotiated 20-year deal with seven years in custody and 13 years of probation.

“Do you all recognize a factual basis for count one, the RICO count?” Judge Whitaker asked as Nichols sat on the stand with one of his defense attorneys, Bruce Harvey, and entered his guilty plea. The attorney said Nichols admitted to two “drug-related events” in 2017 and 2018, but that was it.

“We categorically deny and dispute any use of violence by Mr. Nichols,” Harvey said. “We disagree with the underlying factual basis. We believe that those two predicate acts that were committed by Mr. Nichols without question are sufficient to meet the elements of the offense to which he pled, which is a RICO conspiracy.” He said there were “no conditions” to the deal, signaling that Nichols is not required to testify against the remaining co-defendants.

Nichols was charged in the 2022 killing of Shymel Drinks, an alleged associate of rival Atlanta rapper YFN Lucci. Shannon Stillwell, another co-defendant still on trial alongside Young Thug and three others, is also charged with Drinks’ murder.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Nichols’ plea will affect negotiations with the five other co-defendants currently on trial. The prosecutors began meeting with defense teams one-on-one last week as Judge Whitaker considered a pending mistrial motion filed by Nichols’ attorneys. The latest mistrial motion came after prosecutors allowed a witness to testify Wednesday who should have been excluded on the grounds that it could be prejudicial.

In Wednesday’s incident, rapper Wunnie “SlimeLife Shawty” Lee, a former defendant in the case who accepted an earlier plea deal, read aloud to the jury part of an Instagram caption that had to be redacted. The redaction was a hashtag that read “Free Qua.” As soon as Lee read the hashtag out loud, there was an audible reaction in the courtroom, captured by the daily live stream offered by Law&Crime.

Nichols’ defense team previously won the right to exclude “Free Qua” because they argued it would suggest to jurors that their client was previously in custody for another alleged crime. Prosecutors said it was unclear who “Qua” in the hashtag was referring to.

“We’re not going to be able to turn off this bell,” said Nicole Westmoreland, one of the other attorneys on Nichols’ team, as she called for the lawsuit to be thrown out. Judge Whitaker, who scolded prosecutors last month for the alleged mishandling of a different witness, said he considered Wednesday’s incident “unfortunate” but ultimately a “mistake.” She said if she were to dismiss the trial, it would be “without prejudice,” meaning prosecutors could go back and retry each defendant. She said another option is for prosecutors to come up with a jury instruction that makes clear the hashtag is unrelated to one of the defendants. Prosecutors said they weren’t sure.

“What I’m trying to do is fix your negligence so that everybody hasn’t wasted 10, 12 months of their lives in this process,” Judge Whitaker replied.

Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges brought against him under the 65-count RICO indictment. Prosecutors say he founded and ran a violent street gang called Young Slime Life. He says YSL is a record label and he doesn’t even know some of the 28 defendants named in the indictment. He has been in jail since May 2022, with successive judges refusing to grant him bail.