This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Legal
Young Thug denies racketeering charges
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 11 May 2022
Young Thug has been charged – alongside fellow rapper Gunna and 26 others – with numerous counts of racketeering. Prosecutors in Georgia allege that the rapper co-founded a gang that went on to commit murders, shootings and carjackings, which he then bragged about in his music videos.
“It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is”, said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis at a press conference yesterday. “If you come to Fulton County, Georgia and you commit crimes – and certainly if those crimes are in furtherance of a street gang -then you are going to become a target and a focus of this district attorney’s office”.
According to the indictment, the 28 arrested men are or were members of a gang called Young Slime Life, and since 2012 have “conspired to associate together and with others for the common purposes of illegally obtaining money and property through a pattern of racketeering activity and conducting and participating in the enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity”.
As well as a long list of criminal acts, the legal filing also lists multiple Young Thug lyrics as evidence of his complicity in criminal activity. Real name Jeffery Lamar Williams, he is accused of drugs and weapons-related crimes, and renting a vehicle which was used in a drive-by shooting.
Members of the gang are also accused of attempting to kill rapper YFN Lucci in prison, and shooting at Lil Wayne’s tour bus in 2015.
In a statement, Young Thug’s attorney Brian Steel said: “The response to any allegation is Mr Williams committed no crime whatsoever and we will fight to my last drop of blood to clear him”.
