After a weekslong break, the Fulton County gang and racketeering trial against rapper Young Thug and five of his alleged associates resumed Tuesday.
The judge presiding over the sprawling, high-profile case planned to give jurors a two-week break at the end of the year. But he was forced to start the holiday hiatus early when one of the defendants, Shannon Stillwell, was stabbed at Fulton County’s troubled jail.
According to a sheriff’s office report, Stillwell approached a jailer covered in blood on Dec. 10 and said he needed medical attention. In a subsequent interview, a fellow inmate told deputies that Stillwell was the aggressor and that he got stabbed with his own knife after starting a fight, according to the report.
“I went into his room and he pulled out a knife on me and I took it from him and stabbed it with him,” detainee Willie Brown told authorities, according to the report.
Stillwell was taken to the hospital after being stabbed multiple times, authorities said, but he returned to court Tuesday.
Testimony in the lengthy case resumed with prosecutors calling former officers and security guards to discuss a July 2015 incident involving Young Thug riding around Perimeter Mall on a Hoverboard. The rapper, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, was asked to leave the premises and ultimately complied, but not before allegedly threatening to come back and shoot one of the security guards “in the face,” witnesses said.
Warrants were later obtained charging Williams with making terroristic threats, but DeKalb County prosecutors ultimately dismissed those charges.
An Atlanta police officer also testified about a 2019 traffic stop and foot chase that ended with Stillwell’s arrest. Authorities said Stillwell had more than $5,000 in cash and a loaded 9mm handgun, despite not being able to possess firearms because he is a convicted felon.
Williams, the chart-topping rapper, is accused of being the leader of “Young Slime Life,” which prosecutors say is a south Atlanta gang responsible for a spate or shootings, robberies, drug sales and the deaths of at least three people.
The star’s attorneys contend YSL stands for Young Stoner Life and is simply the name of Young Thug’s record label.
It took 10 months to select a jury in the case and by the time opening statements were given on Nov. 27, it was already the longest criminal trial in Georgia history.
Fulton prosecutors are expected to call hundreds of witnesses over the next few months, and the trial could last up to another year.
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