Earlier in Fulton County court, Brian Steel, the attorney for rapper Young Thug, launched into a soliloquy, which he is wont to do.
“I sit here day after day with this false allegation machine,” he told Judge Ural Glanville. “I’ve done 300 appeals in the state of Georgia alone. I’ve never read a case like this.”
That is what’s known in the literary world as foreshadowing.
The sprawling gang racketeering case is now in its 18th month, the equivalent of back-to-back pregnancies. So far. Jury selection started in January 2023 and took 10 months; opening statements came in late November.
The Fulton RICO case has gained national publicity. Nowhere near the publicity of the other (now-stalled) Fulton RICO case. But it’s up there. On Friday, Rolling Stone carried a story: “The Young Thug Trial Just Went Off the Rails: Witness Arrested for Refusing to Testify.”
That headline was misleading — it presupposes the case has ever been on the rails.
On Friday, Judge Glanville ordered Kenneth Copeland (AKA Lil Woody) to be jailed for the weekend after refusing to testify. Lil Woody, a convicted criminal with ties to the YSL street gang that Young Thug (Jeffery Williams) allegedly led, is supposed to be a key witness in helping jurors connect the dots.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Lil Woody talked to police but is reticent about repeating those statements on the stand for fear of being labelled a “snitch.” Hence the weekend in jail to allow him to reconsider.
He returned to the court Monday scowling, eye-rolling, yawning, twirling in his seat and giving up as little information as is humanly possible.
But the Bizarre Factor was dialed to 11 that day when the judge tossed Steel into the time-out room at the courthouse and later ordered him to spend the next 10 weekends in Fulton’s jail. Steel was held in contempt of court for not giving up his source of a secret meeting held earlier that day in the judge’s chambers.
Steel wanted it to be clear he was no snitch. Later, he said he wanted to do his time with his client so they could strategize for the case. The idea of the buttoned-down lawyer wanting to bunk with a famous rapper and accused gang leader has no doubt afforded him an untold infusion of street cred.
Steel got crossways with Glanville when the attorney told the court he heard that prosecutors, deputies and the judge met with Lil Woody Monday morning in an effort to loosen up the reluctant witness’s tongue.
“Supposedly this honorable court, or let me rephrase that, this court, said I can hold you until the end of this trial,” the angry Steel said, in a nice passive-aggressive dig at the judge.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
“If true, what this is is coercion, witness intimidation and ex parte communications that we have a constitutional right to be present for,” Steel said.
Glanville saw Steel’s ire and raised it with his own. “You got some information you shouldn’t have gotten,” he responded, saying discussions inside his office are “sacrosanct.”
He repeatedly asked Steel to give up his source and then mid-afternoon had a deputy lead him away. Some 30 minutes later, the judge allowed Steel to return to his duties, no doubt thinking that preventing a lawyer from representing his client might look bad on appeal.
At the end of the day, attorney Ashleigh Merchant, recently of Trump RICO case fame, arrived to represent Steel.
Merchant, whose legal motion accusing District Attorney Fani Willis of having an affair with a hired co-prosecutor, may have scuttled the Trump case here. On Monday, she argued Steel needed to have a hearing before another judge.
She is president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and came with members of the organization’s “Strike Force,” a team of lawyers assembled to help colleagues when they get sideways with judges. (The team’s name brings to mind a police squad bent on action or a video game aimed at 13-year-old boys.)
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Merchant has filed an appeal and is arguing for Steel’s weekend stints to be held at bay until her motion is heard by the Appeals Court.
During all these arguments, discussions and delays, the jury in the YSL case has had to sit, often for hours, in a room not knowing what on earth is going on.
On Monday, Day 88 of the trial, proceedings didn’t start until almost lunchtime. Then there was another break after lunch when Steel and Glanville had it out. There was perhaps three hours of testimony.
I called jury selection specialist Denise De la Rue to weigh in on the impact of endless delays interspersed with grindingly slow testimony.
While stewing in the jury room, “How likely do you think someone has said, ‘What do you think is going on?’“ De la Rue said.
“Obviously, they are thinking and they are filling in the blanks,” she said. And so far, there are lots of blanks.
Lil Woody’s testimony has been numbingly obtuse. He’s even refused to identify himself in photos.
Watching the trial has been frustrating. Being there day after day, month after month, is grueling.
So, who will the jurors ultimately punish? The prosecution or the defense?
“I can’t say what the effect will be but there will be one,” De la Rue said.
And it won’t be for months.
