Atlanta rapper Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, left, speaks with his attorney Brian Steel at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. He was indicted in a RICO case earlier this year.stepped up to a courtroom podium Thursday to give a non-negotiated plea in his gang and racketeering conspiracy case in Atlanta, it was a gamble that paid off.
“It was certainly aggressive,” Joshua Schiffer, a criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta who’s been following the case, tells. “It’s a humongous gamble to place an entire sentence in the hands of a judge, especially one who was a former prosecutor and who sends people to prison all the time. And it’s a giant risk to talk too much during a plea. You can talk a judge out of doing what you want.
“What the state of Georgia has presented to this jury in this courtroom the past year has been full of untruths and they know it,” Steel told the judge. He added that authorities had “zero” evidence Williams gave any assistance to Winfrey.In the state’s indictment, Williams is accused of engaging in a Feb. 2021 “conversation” with two other alleged YSL gang members in which he stated, “YSL rule the world kid. 24m on a n—- head.
In his follow-up address to the court, Steel said Williams only shared the Instagram post in question after YFN Lucci, born Rayshawn Bennett, started taunting him in a purported attempt to generate publicity. “Mr. Williams is a much more high-profile artist than Mr. Bennet at that time, and Mr. Bennet is saying that he slept with Mr. Williams’ fiancé while Mr. Williams and she are a significant couple – and that Mr. Wiliams’ music is awful, that nobody should listen to his music ever.
Judge Whitaker then sentenced him to time served, 15 years of probation, and a “backloaded” consecutive sentence of 20 years that only kicks in if he violates probation.