US Rapper Young Thug Freed After Guilty Plea In Street Gang Case

In a dramatic change to the longest trial in the state of Georgia’s southern US state, Rapper Young Thug was freed from jail on Thursday after entering a plea agreement to a criminal gang and drug and firearms charges.

The 33-year-old Atlanta artist, born Jeffery Lamar Williams, was one of 28 alleged street gang members indicted in May 2022 on racketeering and other charges.

Young Thug was charged with violating state racketeering laws after being accused of being the leader of YSL, or Young Slime Life, a branch of the Bloods gang.

The underlying offences in the racketeering indictment included murder, assault, carjacking, drug dealing and theft.

The Grammy-winning rapper entered a guilty plea to six other counts, including firearms and drug possession, in addition to racketeering charges and being the leader of a criminal street gang.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker, who had been the judge who would take over the lengthy trial, sentenced him to time served and 15 years of probation, according to The New York Times.

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Young Thug was listed under his birth name on an online listing that led to his release on Thursday, according to Fulton County jail records. The disposition of the charges was listed as “time served” or “probation” on the database listing.

Opening arguments didn’t take place until November 27th of the year, but jury selection for the case started in January of 2023.

During opening arguments, prosecutors said Young Thug’s record label, YSL, was a front for a crime ring and he was the leader.

According to Fulton County prosecutor Adriane Love, “YSL will demonstrate that it is a criminal street gang,” according to the evidence.

Love read the lyrics to Young Thug’s song “Take It To Trial,” claiming that the prosecution’s lyrics had “an uncanny similarity to very true, very real, and quite specific events.”

“We didn’t chase the lyrics to solve the murder, we chased the murder and found the lyrics”, she said.

The defense insisted that YSL stands for Young Stoner Life Records, a hip-hop label that Young Thug founded in 2016 and which, they say, amounts to a vague association of artists, not a gang.

The defense claimed that “rap is the only fictional art form treated this way” and that the lyrics were not included in the evidence.

Young Thug, one of the most well-known and eccentric rappers in the Atlanta scene, is a must-see.

Source: Channels TV