YSL RICO Trial: Day Two of Jury Deliberations

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. – Day two of jury deliberations began Tuesday afternoon in the YSL RICO trial in Fulton County. Prosecutors say YSL is a gang and that members like Kendrick and Wtillwell were part of a vast conspiracy to further the gang. Both face a number of charges, including RICO and murder.

The jurors were told to return at 9 a.m. Tuesday. It appears that shortly after the jurors began deliberating for the day, they informed the court that they wanted to watch a specific video and had a question about the difference between “intent” and “intent to disseminate.”

After a discussion between the judge and attorneys, the jury was brought into the courtroom and surveillance video from the night of Donovan “Nut” Thomas’ murder was again shown to the jury.

The jury returned to the deliberation room at approximately 10:30 am

“I feel nervous and anxious, but I think if the jury takes everything into consideration, they will not find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Kendrick’s attorney Doug Weinstein.

Weinstein spoke one-on-one with FOX 5. He said he is trying to keep his client’s spirits high as this trial approaches the one-year mark.

“I’ll show him pictures of him and I’ll show that people will delete the feed or things that the photographers will take. I’ll show him that, you know, anything that shows that he has a tremendous amount of public support behind him has,” he said.

YSL RICO Trial: Day one of jury deliberations

The longest-running criminal trial in Georgia history is now in the hands of the men and women of the jury.

Tuesday morning began with a closing discussion of jury instructions.

“You must enter your deliberations with an open mind,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker told jurors.

After delivering the instructions to the jury and calling the alternates, Judge Whitaker dismissed them from the courtroom shortly after noon so they could appoint a foreman. The jury finally began deliberations at 2:30 p.m., with the judge dismissing them just after 5 p.m.

Judge Whitaker indicated she would like them to return at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Nearly a year since the start of the YSL RICO trial, the number of defendants has been reduced to two: Shannon Stillwell and Deamonte Kendrick, who raps as Yak Gotti.

The original indictment accused 28 people of conspiring to violate Georgia’s Racketeers and Corrupt Organizations Act. Four of them, including Young Thug, pleaded guilty last month. Stillwell and Kendrick rejected plea deals after weeks of negotiations, and their attorneys chose not to present evidence or witnesses.

After closing arguments on Monday, the jury will now decide whether to find the two men guilty on gang, murder, drug and gun charges.

If they haven’t made a ruling by Wednesday, they will return after Thanksgiving.

YSL RICO Trial: The Prosecutor’s Closing Argument

On Monday, prosecutors summarized the past 12 months in just a matter of hours. The state argued that Kendrick and Stillwell were part of a vast conspiracy that included extensive violence.

“Over and over again they show that they have guns, and we are not afraid to use them,” Adkins said. ‘Believe them. The evidence has shown it.”

The state spoke about the law and examined evidence, such as surveillance videos and social media posts. They say it all shows that YSL members like Kendrick and Stillwell committed crimes against half of the street gang co-founded by Young Thug.

Kendrick and Stillwell were charged in the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas Jr., also known as “Big Nut,” at an Atlanta barbershop. Prosecutors say Thomas was part of a rival gang. Stillwell was also charged with the 2022 murder of Shymel Drinks in retaliation for the killing of two YSL employees days earlier, prosecutors said.

“If someone kills a rival gang member twice, I think it’s pretty clear that they knowingly agreed to whether they signed on the dotted line,” Adkins said.

Adkins described YSL as a violent gang that operated through “deceit, intimidation, destruction and death.”

He pointed to social media posts in which he said members had killed people from rival gangs and said their clothes and tattoos were “walking billboards” for YSL.

“We’re not targeting people of color, we’re targeting gang members who decided to destroy communities in Fulton County,” said Simone Hylton, deputy district attorney with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. “In Fulton County, you cannot victimize anyone in our county without being held accountable for your actions,” Hylton said.

YSL RICO Trial: The Defense’s Closing Arguments

Stillwell and Kendrick’s attorneys said the state pieced together cherry-picked social media posts and song lyrics with unreliable witness statements to paint a misleading story about young men from troubled upbringings trying to escape poverty through music .

Kendrick’s attorney, Doug Weinstein, and Stillwell’s attorney, Max Schardt, said prosecutors included a number of separate alleged crimes, many from about a decade ago, in an indictment without showing they were connected to a criminal enterprise.

“The state has spent the last year with a hammer in their hand knocking on a square peg they call evidence,” Schardt said. “Just keep trying and pop, pop, pop, just to make it fit, to make it look good. It’ll never fit because it’s not the truth.”

Alleged YSL affiliates said during the trial that they lied to police to avoid lengthy prison sentences. Schardt theorized that one of those witnesses killed Thomas. He framed Stillwell, Kendrick and others as part of his series of lies to avoid the threat of prison, Schardt said.

Before he got “sucked into this attack on Jeffery Williams,” Weinstein said Kendrick was focused on the rap career that helped him put his troubled past behind him after plans to play football at the University of Georgia fell through.

His client wasn’t even in the car used in the drive-by shooting that killed Thomas, Weinstein said. But prosecutors said Kendrick was the one who alerted his counterparts to Thomas’ whereabouts before he was killed.

“If you look at the evidence presented to you and any assessment of that evidence, you would come back with the conclusion that you are not guilty,” Weinstein said.

Previous YSL RICO Plea Agreements and Conflicts

The case against Young Thug, the 33-year-old Atlanta-born Grammy-winning artist whose given name is Jeffery Williams, and dozens of others has seen twists and turns and major court shakeups over the past two years.

Williams pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges in October after negotiations with prosecutors broke down. That left the punishment up to Whitaker, who gave him a 40-year prison sentence walk freely on probation with heavy restrictions, including a ban from metro Atlanta for the first ten years, except in certain cases.

The slow process has been fraught with problems from the start. Jury selection took place almost 10 monthsFulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville, the original judge, was removed from the case in July after attorneys filed a recusal motion based on a secret meeting he had with prosecutors and a state witness.

Whitaker took over the case and often lost patience with prosecutors over what she once called “bad law practice.” She and her attorneys scolded prosecutors for not sharing the evidence beforehand.

More than 175 witnesses testified during the trial. Prosecutors alleged that Young Thug and two others in 2012 co-founded a violent criminal street gang called Young Slime Life, or YSL, which they say has ties to the national Bloods gang.

During Young Thug’s sentencing hearing, attorney Brian Steel said Young Thug had been “falsely accused” and that the evidence against him was weak. He also condemned the use of rap lyrics during the trial.

Steel said he thought they were winning the trial and he wanted to hold it to a jury verdict, but Young Thug wanted to go home to his family instead of sitting out the rest of the trial, which felt like ‘hell’.

Nine people were charged in the indictment, including the Atlanta rapper Gunnawhose real name is Sergio Kitchens, accepted plea deals before the trial began. Twelve others will be tried separately. Prosecutors dropped charges against one suspect after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated case.