Young Thug, seen here in Los Angeles in 2021, pleads guilty more than two years after being arrested and charged with participating in criminal gang activity.

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Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

The trial against Atlanta rapper Young Thug has ended in a guilty plea. Late in Thursday’s proceedings, the 33-year-old artist, whose real name is Jeffrery Williams, changed his plea in the RICO case to guilty and no contest on several gang, gun and drug charges.

After a dramatic series of events in what has become Georgia’s longest-running criminal trial, Williams is sent home. The government’s lawyers asked for a 45-year sentence — 25 years in prison and 20 years probation — but Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker handed down a sentence that allowed Williams to be released immediately. “The total sentence is 40 years, where you must serve the first five years in prison, but it will be commuted to the time you have already served,” she stated during the proceedings.

Williams had been in custody for more than two years, since he was first charged in 2022. He will serve 15 years of probation, with a 20-year sentence that could be served in custody, depending on probation. He must also remain out of the Atlanta metro area for the first ten years of his probation, subject to certain guidelines, including returning to the city to make a live public presentation against gangs and violence against children at a school. community organization several times a year. In the days leading up to Thursday’s hearing, three of Williams’ co-defendants had pleaded guilty in agreements with the prosecution.