Judge dismissed in gang and racketeering case against rapper Young Thug and others

ATLANTA (AP) — The judge overseeing the long-running racketeering and gang prosecutions of rapper Young Thug and others has been removed from his post after two defendants requested his recusal, citing a meeting the judge held with prosecutors and a state witness.

Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville had stayed the Atlanta case two weeks ago to give another judge a chance to consider the defendants’ motions to recuse themselves. Judge Rachel Krause granted those motions Monday and ordered the court clerk to assign the case to another judge.

Without faulting Glanville for holding the meeting and saying she had “no doubt that Judge Glanville can and will continue to preside fairly over this case,” Krause wrote that “the ‘need to preserve public confidence in the judicial system’ weighs in favor of excusing Judge Glanville” from the case.

The decision will likely cause further delays in a trial that has already dragged on for more than a year. Jury Selection started in January 2023 And It took almost 10 months. The opening statements took place in November and the prosecution has been presenting its case since then, calling dozens of witnesses.

Young Thug, a Grammy winner whose real name is Jeffery Williams, was indicted two years ago in a lengthy indictment charging him and more than two dozen others with conspiring to violate Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. He also faces gang, drug and gun-related charges and is being tried with five of the others indicted with him.

Lawyers for Young Thug and co-defendant Deamonte Kendrick filed motions seeking Glanville’s recusal. They said the judge hold a meeting Prosecutors and prosecution witness Kenneth Copeland met at a meeting at which neither the defendants nor defense attorneys were present. Defense attorneys argued the meeting was “inappropriate” and that the judge and prosecutors tried to pressure the witness to testify.

Glanville maintained that the meeting was regular and argued that no one took tactical advantage of it.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office, which is prosecuting the case, argued that Glanville did not need to be recused.

Brian Steel, Young Thug’s attorney, said in an emailed statement that his client is innocent and is seeking to clear his name through a fair trial.

“Unfortunately, Judge Glanville and the prosecutors failed in their obligations under the law,” Steel said, adding that he was grateful for the disqualification order and looked forward “to proceeding with a trial judge who will follow the law fairly and faithfully.”

Kendrick’s attorney, Doug Weinstein, also welcomed Monday’s ruling.

“While I respect Chief Justice Glanville and his service to the community and country, he has simply become biased over the course of this case,” he wrote in an email. He added that he looked forward to trying the case “before an impartial judge,” but said the only fair outcome at this point was “a mistrial and bail” for Kendrick, who has been in jail for more than two years.

A spokesman for Willis’ office declined to comment. The Associated Press also reached out to Glanville for comment.

In her order, Krause wrote that she “generally agreed” with Glanville’s assessment of the meeting’s propriety, that nothing about the meeting or what was discussed was fundamentally improper. However, she wrote that the meeting “could have — and perhaps should have” been held in open court.

But when Glanville denied Kendrick’s motion to disqualify the court, he “provided context, questioned the truth of the allegations, and otherwise explained his decisions and actions and argued why those actions were appropriate.” Citing case law, Krause wrote that when a judge discloses information relevant to his potential disqualification, he must do so “in as objective, impartial, and non-argumentative a manner as possible, so that the judge is not reasonably perceived as a hostile witness or attorney.”

Young Thug has been wildly successful since he started rapping as a teenager and is the CEO of his own label, Young Stoner Life, or YSL. Artists on his label are considered part of the “Slime Family,” and a compilation album, “Slime Language 2,” hit No. 1 on the charts in April 2021.

But prosecutors say YSL also stands for Young Slime Life, which they say is a violent Atlanta-based street gang affiliated with the national Bloods gang and founded by Young Thug and two others in 2012. Prosecutors say those named in the indictment are responsible for violent crimes — including murders, shootings and carjackings — to raise money for the gang, burnish its reputation and expand its power and territory.

Steel acknowledged in his opening statement that his client’s songs mention violent acts, including murder, but he said they were simply artistic expressions drawn from his difficult childhood and not a chronicle of his own activities.