Rapper Young Thug to be released from house arrest for a period of time as part of plea deal in Georgia RICO case

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 life imprisonment and 15 years of probation and is due to be released on house arrest on Thursday.

“Is it your decision to waive those rights and enter a guilty plea because you are actually guilty?” asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker.

“Yes,” Williams said before his attorney intervened on one of the charges.

According to an ABC affiliate in Atlanta, WSB-TVwho was in the courtroom Thursday, the rapper’s plea deal is non-negotiable, meaning the final sentencing decision is up to the judge.

He pleaded nolo contendere to two charges, including a RICO violation, which is a plea of ​​no contest or defense, meaning the defendant neither admits nor denies the charges against them, WSB-TV reported.

ABC News has reached out to Williams’ attorney, Brian Steel, for further comment.

Williams was initially charged on May 10, 2022, with one count each of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and participating in criminal street gang activity, and was later charged with an additional count of participation in street gangs. activity, three counts of violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm.

Before the plea agreement 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 was Georgia’s longest to date, prosecutors argued that the Grammy-winning rapper was a co-founder and “proclaimed leader” of an alleged criminal street gang of Fulton County. , Georgia, known as “Young Slime Life” or “YSL.”

“YSL members and associates moved in like a pack with Jeffrey Williams as their boss,” Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Adriane Love said in opening statements.

Love alleged that the alleged members of YSL committed “criminal street gang activity – that is, crimes which were intended to further the purpose and furtherance of the directives of YSL itself”.

“For 10 years and more, the group that calls itself Young Slime Life has 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 absorbed youth, innocence and even the lives of some of its youngest members.”

The Grammy-winning rapper was indicted in May 2022 in a RICO indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. He was among 28 people charged, but was tried with five co-defendants after many of the defendants took plea deals, while the judge ruled that 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 co-defendants, the alleged evidence in the case propelled him further into the spotlight national.

The use of the lyrics sparked outrage from 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 alleged in the indictment that social media posts, images and various song lyrics released by several defendants, including Young Thug, are “acts in furtherance of a conspiracy” to violate the RICO Act.

Although the scope of the charge went far beyond the use of rap lyrics, the inclusion of the lyrics caused outrage among artists in the music industry and helped spark a movement that came to be known as “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 stop prosecutors from using the lyrics as evidence.

Steel argued that “(The lyrics) cannot be used as evidence of crime if they are simply connected to music/free speech/free speech/poetry.”

Glanville denied the motion in a November 2022 ruling, in which she ruled that 17 sets of lyrics mentioned in the indictment could be preliminarily admitted at trial.

“I’m conditionally admitting those pending lines, depending on — or subject to a foundation being properly laid by the state or the proponent seeking to admit that evidence,” Glanville said.