YSL RICO Trial: Day 2 of jury deliberations begins with a jury inquiry

YSL RICO Trial: Second Day of Jury Deliberations

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

Jurors were ordered to return at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Apparently, shortly after deliberations began, the jury told the court that they wanted to review a particular video and had a question about the difference between “intent” and “intent to distribute.”

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

The jury returned to the deliberation room around 10:30 a.m

“I’m nervous and scared, but I think if the jury considers everything, they won’t be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Kendrick’s attorney, Doug Weinstein.

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

“I show him pictures of him and I show him people taking down the feed or things the photographers are going to do. I show him, you know, anything that shows he has a lot of public support behind him,” he said.

YSL-RICO trial: First day 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 final discussion of jury instructions.

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

After giving instructions to the jury and calling in 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. and the judge dismissed them shortly after 5:00 p.m

Judge Whitaker indicated that she wanted her to return at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

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

The original indictment charged 28 people with conspiracy to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced 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 lawyers declined to present evidence or witnesses.

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

If they don’t reach a verdict by the end of Wednesday, they will return after Thanksgiving.

YSL-RICO trial: The prosecution’s closing argument

On Monday, prosecutors reduced the last 12 months to a few hours. The state argued that Kendrick and Stillwell were part of a vast conspiracy that included much violence.

“Time and time again they demonstrate that they have weapons and we are not afraid to use them,” Adkins said. “Believe them. The evidence has shown it.”

The state discussed the law and reviewed evidence such as surveillance videos and social media posts. They say everything 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 hair salon. Prosecutors say Thomas was a member of a rival gang. According to prosecutors, Stillwell was also charged with the 2022 murder of Shymel Drinks in retaliation for the murders of two YSL employees just days earlier.

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

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

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

“We are not targeting people of color, but rather gang members who have decided to wreak havoc in communities across Fulton County,” said Simone Hylton, assistant district attorney with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. “In Fulton County, you can’t bully anyone in our county without being held accountable for their actions,” Hylton said.

YSL-RICO trial: The defense’s closing argument

Attorneys for Stillwell and Kendrick said the state stitched together carefully selected social media posts and song lyrics with unreliable witness testimony to paint a misleading narrative about young men from difficult backgrounds who tried to escape poverty through music.

Doug Weinstein, Kendrick’s defense attorney, and Stillwell’s defense attorney Max Schardt said prosecutors threw a number of different alleged crimes, many from about a decade ago, into one indictment without proving they were connected to a criminal enterprise.

“The state has spent the last year, with a hammer in hand, banging on a square peg that they call evidence,” Schardt said. “I just keep trying to boom, boom, boom, just to make it fit, to make it look good. It will never fit because it is not true.”

Suspected YSL members said during the trial that they had lied to police to avoid long prison sentences. Schardt suspected that one of these witnesses had killed Thomas. Schardt said he accused Stillwell, Kendrick and others as part of his chain of lies to avoid the threat of prison time.

Before he became “implicated in this targeted attack on Jeffery Williams,” Weinstein said Kendrick was focused on a rap career, which helped him put his troubled past behind him after his plans to attend the University of Georgia for football to play had failed.

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 tipped off his colleagues about Thomas’ whereabouts before his murder.

“If you look at the evidence presented to you and review that evidence, you will come to the conclusion that you are not guilty,” Weinstein said.

Previous YSL RICO Plea Deals and Conflicts

The case against Young Thug, the 33-year-old Atlanta-born Grammy Award winner whose first name is Jeffery Williams, and dozens of others has seen twists and turns and major judicial upheavals over the past two years.

Williams pleaded guilty to gang, drug and weapons charges in October after negotiations with prosecutors failed. The verdict was left to Whitaker, who gave him a 40-year prison sentence, which he allowed go free on probation with significant restrictions, including a ban from the Atlanta metropolitan area for the first 10 years, except on certain occasions.

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

Whitaker took on the case and often lost patience with prosecutors for what she once called “poor advocacy.” She and her defense attorneys scolded prosecutors for not turning over the evidence in advance.

More than 175 witnesses testified throughout the trial. Prosecutors alleged that Young Thug and two others founded a violent criminal street gang called Young Slime Life (YSL) in 2012, which they said was linked to the national Bloods gang.

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

Steel said he thought they would win the trial and wanted to hold out until the jury’s verdict, but Young Thug wanted to go home to his family rather than sit through the rest of the trial, which felt like “hell.”

Nine people were charged in the indictment, including an Atlanta rapper Gunnawhose real name is Sergio Kitchens, accepted plea agreements before the trial began. Twelve more are to be examined separately. Prosecutors dropped charges against a defendant after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated case.