Last YSL defendants found not guilty of gang crimes in Georgia's longest trial

ATLANTA (CN) — The last two defendants in the case involving rapper Young Thug were found not guilty of participating in a criminal street gang Tuesday, bringing an end to Georgia’s longest-ever trial.

After about 16 hours of deliberations over four days, a jury acquitted Shannon Stillwell and Deamonte Kendrick of the most serious charges they faced, including racketeering and murder.

Stillwell was found not guilty on all charges, except for illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Stillwell faced charges over the murder of Shymel Drinks, which prosecutors had accused Stillwell of committing along with three other people on March 14, 2022.

He was sentenced to the maximum 10 years on the firearm count, with two credited for time served and the remaining on probation.

Drinks’ family rushed out of the courtroom after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker read the verdict.

Deamonte Kendrick was found not guilty on all charges. Kendrick, who raps under the name Yak Gotti, was arrested during a raid of Young Thug’s Atlanta home in May 2022.

He and Stillwell faced murder charges over the fatal drive-by shooting of Donovan “Nut” Thomas outside of an Atlanta barber shop in January 2015.

Prosecutors argued that Thomas was a rival gang member, showing jurors surveillance footage of the defendants gathered at a nearby Texaco gas station on the night of the murder. They also claimed the Infiniti sedan used in the fatal shooting had been rented under Young Thug’s name — Jeffrey Williams.

The verdict comes two days after Kendrick was stabbed during a “physical altercation” with another inmate at a Fulton County jail annex where he was being held, according to his attorney.

On Monday, attorney Doug Weinstein said his client was doing well. Kendrick appeared in court with a few staples on his scalp.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, whose jail is under federal investigation for severe civil rights violations, said it is investigating the incident. In December 2023, Stillwell was also stabbed at the Fulton County Jail, delaying the trial for about a month.

Members of the prosecution team, who spent nearly two years trying the case after a decade of investigation into the purported gang itself, appeared stunned as the verdict was read.

Following a year of trial with more than 170 witnesses, the jury began deliberating last Tuesday afternoon and continued through Wednesday.

The jurors returned Monday morning after the Thanksgiving weekend, with attorneys presenting closing arguments all day Monday.

Defense attorneys argued the state used cherry-picked social media posts and song lyrics with biased witness testimony to paint a misleading narrative about young Black men who tried to escape poverty through music.

But prosecutors told the jury that YSL was a real and violent gang that inflicted “deception, intimidation, destruction and death" on multiple communities.

Stillwell and Kendrick were indicted on racketeering and other charges in May 2022, along with 26 others accused of involvement in a criminal street gang called YSL or Young Slime Life, which prosecutors said was responsible for a string of shootings, drug dealings and robberies across Atlanta over the past decade.

Grammy-award winning hip-hop artist Young Thug was accused of being the leader of the purported gang; the 33-year-old accepted a plea deal last month and was sentenced to 15 years of probation and ordered to stay out of Atlanta for the next decade.

The attorney for Young Thug denied the state’s charges and maintained throughout the trial that YSL is merely a reference to the name of his record label, Young Stoner Life.

Another famous rapper, Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, was also charged but took a plea deal from the state, like most other defendants over the past two years. Another 12 defendants had their cases severed from the larger trial for various reasons; one defendant had his charges dropped after being convicted of two unrelated murders in Georgia and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Following nearly a full year of jury selection, the trial kicked off in November 2023 for the remaining six defendants. It became the state’s longest criminal trial after delays, prosecution errors and the removal of the former judge.

Despite First Amendment advocates’ criticism that using rap lyrics as evidence in court was prejudicial, the former judge allowed prosecutors to present to the jury nearly 20 sets of lyrics they say were “admissions” of criminal activity committed by members of the purported gang.

Prosecutors contend that certain lyrics and music video scenes glorified YSL’s criminal activities, including fatal shootings of at least three rival gang members, selling drugs and violence against police and others.

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