In a motion filed Tuesday, the lawyer for Deamonte Kendrick — a defendant in rapper Young Thug’s gang and racketeering case — accused Fani Willis’ team of Fulton County prosecutors of causing a mistrial on purpose to win a losing case. The trial has been going on for 19 months.
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“Losing its case, apparently unconcerned about the need for public justice, the State clearly sought an opportunity to restart the trial by triggering an event in such egregious violation of the Constitutional rights of Kendrick that he would have no choice but to request a mistrial,” Kendrick’s attorney Doug Weinstein stated, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, has been in jail since being arrested in May 2022. Fulton County prosecutors believe the Grammy winner is the leader of Young Slime Life (YSL), an Atlanta-based street gang. He and more than two dozen others are accused of violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law.
However, Williams’ attorneys say that YSL is merely a record label. In the motion, Weinstein referenced a secret meeting on June 10 that Chief Judge Ural Glanville held in his chambers with prosecutors and one of the case’s key witnesses, Kenneth Copeland. The meeting was led by prosecutors who said they would jail Copeland if he decided not to testify.
Weinstein said that jurors heard four days of “tainted testimony.” Judge Glanville was recused from the trial over how he handled the session.
“Kendrick’s Constitutional rights were violated when neither he nor his attorneys were present at a critical stage of the proceedings – the secret, ex parte meeting among the State, Chief Judge Glanville, Copeland, state investigators, court staff, and deputies,” Weinstein wrote in his motion.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker has since taken over the case, but now it’s on hold. Whitaker has scheduled a motions hearing for July 30 and jurors will return Aug. 5.
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