YSL RICO Trial: Day 2 of jury deliberations begin with request from jury

YSL RICO Trial: Day two of jury deliberations

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - Day two of jury deliberations began Wednesday 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 further the gang. Both face a number of charges including RICO and murder charges. 

Jurors were instructed to return at 9 a.m. Shortly after they began deliberating for the day, the jurors notified the court that they wanted to review specific video and had a question about the difference between "intent" and "intent to distribute."

After a discussion between the judge and lawyers, the jury was brought into the courtroom and the surveillance video from the night of Donovan "Nut" Thomas' murder was shown again to the jury. 

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

"I am feeling nervous and anxious, but I think if the jury considers everything, then they're not going to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," said Kendrick’s attorney Doug Weinstein.

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

"I'll show him pictures of him and I that people will take off the feed or things the photographers will take. I'll show him that, you know, anything that shows that he has a huge amount of public support behind him," he said.

By 3 p.m. Wednesday, the jury still had not reached a verdict and indicated they did not think they would be able to do so that day. The court released the jurors to go home for Thanksgiving with instructions to return Monday morning. 

YSL RICO Trial: Day one 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 the jury instructions.

"You should start your deliberations with an open mind," Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker told the jurors.

After delivering the instructions to the jury and calling out the alternates, Judge Whitaker dismissed them from the courtroom shortly after noon so that they could nominate a foreperson. The jury finally began deliberations at 2:30 p.m., with the judge dismissing them just after 5 p.m. 

Judge Whitaker indicated that she would like them to return at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Nearly a year since the beginning of the YSL RICO Trial, the number of defendants has dwindled down to two: Shannon Stillwell and Deamonte Kendrick, who raps as Yak Gotti. 

The original indictment charged 28 people with conspiring 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 chose not to present evidence or witnesses.

After closing arguments on Monday, the jury will now decide whether the two men will be found guilty on gang, murder, drug and gun charges. 

If they do not reach a verdict by the end of Wednesday, they will return after Thanksgiving.

YSL RICO Trial: The prosecution's closing argument

On Monday, prosecutors boiled down the last 12 months into just a matter of hours. The state argued that Kendrick and Stillwell were part of a vast conspiracy that included a lot of violence.

"Over and over and over, they show you they have guns, and we’re not afraid to use them," Adkins said. "Believe them. The evidence has shown it."

The state talked about the law, went through evidence, like surveillance videos and social media posts. They say all of it shows YSL members like Kendrick and Stillwell committed crimes on half of the street gang co-founded by Young Thug.

Kendrick and Stillwell were charged in the 2015 killing of Donovan Thomas Jr., also known as "Big Nut," in an Atlanta barbershop. Prosecutors say Thomas was in a rival gang. Stillwell was also charged with the 2022 murder of Shymel Drinks in retaliation for the murders of two YSL associates days earlier, prosecutors said.

"If someone murders a rival gang member twice, I think it’s pretty clear they knowingly and willfully agreed 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 showed members admittedly killed people in rival gangs and said their clothes and tattoos were "walking billboards" for YSL.

"We are not targeting people of color, we are targeting gang members who decided to wreak havoc on communities in Fulton County," said Simone Hylton, Deputy District Attorney with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. "In Fulton County, you don’t get to victimize anyone in our county without being held accountable for your actions," Hylton said.

YSL RICO Trial: The defense's closing argument

The attorneys for Stillwell and Kendrick said the state slapped together cherry-picked social media posts and song lyrics with unreliable witness testimony to paint a misleading narrative about young men from tough upbringings who tried to escape poverty through music.

Doug Weinstein, Kendrick’s defense attorney, and Stillwell’s defense attorney, Max Schardt, said prosecutors threw a bunch of separate alleged crimes, many from around a decade ago, into an indictment without showing that they were connected to a criminal enterprise.

"The state has spent the past year with a hammer in their hand banging on a square peg that they call evidence," Schardt said. "Just continuing to try and bang, bang, bang just to make it fit, make it look good. It’s never going to fit because it’s not the truth."

Alleged YSL affiliates said during the trial they lied to police to avoid long prison sentences. Schardt theorized one of those witnesses killed Thomas. He framed Stillwell, Kendrick and others as a part of his string of lies to avoid the threat of prison, Schardt said.

Before he got "sucked up in this targeting of Jeffery Williams," Weinstein said Kendrick was focused on the rap career that helped him move on from his troubled past after plans to play football at the University of Georgia fell through.

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 alerted his counterparts about Thomas’ whereabouts before he was murdered.

"Looking at the evidence presented to you and any review of that evidence would have you come back with findings of not guilty," Weinstein said.

Previous YSL RICO plea deals and conflicts

The case against Young Thug, the 33-year-old Atlanta-born Grammy winning artist whose given name is Jeffery Williams, and dozens of others has seen twists and turns and major judge shakeups for the last two years. 

Williams pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges in October after negotiations with prosecutors broke down. That left the sentence up to Whitaker, who gave him a 40-year sentence that let him walk free on probation with hefty restrictions, including a ban from the metro Atlanta area for the first 10 years except for certain occasions.

The slow-moving trial has been fraught with problems from the start. Jury selection took nearly 10 months, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville, the original judge, was removed from the case in July after defense attorneys filed a recusal motion based on a secretive meeting he held with prosecutors and a state witness.

Whitaker took over the case and often lost patience with prosecutors for what she once called "poor lawyering." She and defense attorneys scolded prosecutors for not sharing evidence in advance.

More than 175 witnesses testified throughout the trial. Prosecutors alleged that Young Thug and two others co-founded a violent criminal street gang in 2012 called Young Slime Life, or YSL, which they say is affiliated with the national Bloods gang.

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

Steel said he thought they were winning the trial and wanted to stick it out to a jury verdict, but Young Thug wanted to go home to his family instead of sitting through the rest of the trial, which felt like "hell."

Nine people charged in the indictment, including Atlanta rapper Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, accepted plea deals before the trial began. Twelve others are to be tried separately. Prosecutors dropped charges against one defendant after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated case.