ATLANTA — Another motion for a mistrial looms over the long-running RICO trial against Young Thug and the alleged YSL street gang Wednesday.
This comes as a new witness, rapper Slimelife Shawty, took the stand. The rapper, whose legal name is Wunnie Lee, was initially one of the 28 co-defendants in the sprawling indictment but took a plea deal in 2022.
While on the stand, Lee was asked to identify others involved in the case based on social media posts. While reading a caption for one of the posts in question, Lee accidentally read an unredacted version on the paper exhibit instead of the redacted version displayed on a monitor.
The unredacted version featured the hashtag #FreeQua, which Lee read aloud to the jury. Defense teams quickly moved for a mistrial as the jury was not supposed to know which defendants had been incarcerated.
"It is painfully obvious that the state is not prepping their witnesses," Bruce Harvey, attorney for codefendant Quardavious Nichols, said.
Following the mishap, Judge Paige Whitaker excused the jury and witness and instantly began admonishing the prosecution.
"What I'm trying to do is fix your sloppiness so everyone would not have wasted 12 months of their lives in this trial," Whitaker yelled.
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Whitaker told the defense while she would not agree to a mistrial with prejudice, she left the possibility open for a mistral without prejudice, meaning the case would end but the State could retry it. The trial, which began in November 2023, is already the longest in Georgia state history.
The judge has not yet ruled on the petition for a mistrial, but the jury was dismissed for the day, and proceedings were adjourned shortly after. The trial is expected to reconvene Thursday.