ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seeking to hold a trial early next year for the last five defendants who were originally indicted along with Atlanta rapper Young Thug.
A final plea hearing for the five is set for Dec. 17 and Willis filed a motion Friday asking that a trial begin on Feb. 24. She estimates that a trial would last about three months.
A grand jury in May 2022 indicted 28 people, including Young Thug, and charged them with racketeering. The indictment said the rapper co-founded a violent street gang that committed multiple murders, shootings and carjackings over roughly a decade and promoted its activities in songs and on social media.
A trial for Young Thug, whose given name is Jeffery Williams, and five others began in November 2023 after it took nearly 10 months to seat a jury. The rapper and three other defendants pleaded guilty in October. Young Thug was freed on probation with a variety of conditions, including an order to stay away from the Atlanta area for a decade.
A jury on Tuesday found the two remaining defendants in the trial not guilty of racketeering, murder and gang-related charges, though one of them was convicted on a gun charge.
Nine of the defendants, including the rapper Gunna, had accepted plea deals before the trial began, and prosecutors dropped charges against one defendant after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated case.
That left a dozen defendants still facing charges after the trial. One pleaded guilty Wednesday after reaching a deal with prosecutors and prosecutors said the same day that they were dropping the charges against six others.
The Associated Press