{"id":2069,"date":"2024-07-31T14:48:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T14:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-denied-bond-again-by-new-judge-in-atlanta-rico-trial\/"},"modified":"2024-07-31T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T14:48:01","slug":"young-thug-denied-bond-again-by-new-judge-in-atlanta-rico-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-denied-bond-again-by-new-judge-in-atlanta-rico-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Thug Denied Bond Again By New Judge In Atlanta RICO Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThe new judge in Young Thug\u2019s sprawling Atlanta gang trial has denied the rapper\u2019s renewed request to be released from jail until a verdict is reached.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo weeks after Judge Paige Reese Whitaker<\/strong> became the third judge to preside over the huge racketeering case, she rejected arguments from Thug\u2019s attorney Brian Steel<\/strong> to release the rapper on bond and allow him to live under house arrest with strict monitoring.<\/p>\n

\n\tSteel had argued that the recent turbulent events in the case \u2014 Judge Ural Glanville<\/strong> was ordered removed from the case over a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key witness \u2014 were the kind of \u201cchanged circumstances\u201d that would allow her to overturn earlier rulings that kept him locked up.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at a hearing Tuesday, Whitaker was unswayed. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I would have decided the bond originally,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThat\u2019s not before me. These are not the kind of changed circumstances [required under precedent], so I\u2019m not going to reconsider the bond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThug \u2014 real name Jeffery Williams<\/strong> \u2014 and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia\u2019s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and now the removal of the presiding judge. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the case is expected to run well into 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tThug has been sitting in jail for more than two years while the slow-moving trial has dragged on, repeatedly denied bond by Glanville over concerns that he might intimidate witnesses. But with Glanville gone, Steel argued last week that Thug should not be \u201clanguishing in the county jail\u201d under \u201ctortuous\u201d conditions when he has not be convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Tuesday\u2019s hearing, he reiterated those pleas to Whitaker. \u201cMr. Williams has been in custody since the 9th day of May, 2022,\u201d Steel said. \u201cHe has sat through unnecessary jury selection for months, bringing in over 2,000 people when the jurors were chosen from the first 511. That should not be on him. That is excess. He has now sat here for a month while the antics of Judge Glanville and [prosecutors] caused him to wander in squalor in a jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Whitaker denied Thug\u2019s renewed request for bond, the new judge suggested during the hearing that she would speed up the pace of the case, ordering prosecutors to better organize their planned witness testimony and evidence, saying, \u201cIt should not take another seven months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe judge is also still considering whether case should continue at all. Thug and three of the other YSL defendants have moved for a mistrial, citing Glanville\u2019s conduct and other issues with the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Whitaker denied two of those motions, including one that had argued that a brand new judge could not possibly \u201cmake informed rulings\u201d after missing the first 19 months of a trial in which over 100 witnesses had already testified. But she left two pending, including Steel\u2019s accusations that Glanville\u2019s behavior had irreparably broken the case.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf that is the case, there will be a different ruling made that will impact this trial, that may result in a mistrial, that may result in a mistrial with prejudice,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new judge in Young Thug\u2019s sprawling Atlanta gang trial has denied the rapper\u2019s renewed request to be released from jail until a verdict is reached. Two weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2793,2792,2791,423,2513,1095,342,1094],"class_list":["post-2069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-atlanta","tag-bond","tag-denied","tag-judge","tag-rico","tag-thug","tag-trial","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}