The new judge in the Young Thug RICO case has ruled on the rapper’s request to be released on bond while on trial.
According to Courthouse News Service, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker has denied the motion made by Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel, to allow the Atlanta recording artist to be released on bond. She also rejected Young Thug and his defendants’ motion for a mistrial based on how the former judge of the case, Chief Judge Ural Glanville, handled a secret, ex-parte meeting with prosecutors and a state’s witness.
“I am not going to reconsider any bond issues that have already been considered and ruled upon by another court absent legitimate changed circumstances,” Steele was told on July 30. Whitaker also denied bond for Young Thug’s associates, Deamonte Kendrick and Marquavius Huey.
The trial is now in its 19th month, extending the longest criminal trial in Georgia history.
“So that the record is clear, the basis for the recusal of Judge Glanville was not that he was biased, was not that the ex-parte itself was improper,” Whitaker said. “It was that Judge Glanville engaged in an exposition on the facts in making his rulings on the motion to recuse.”
Whitaker has yet to respond to Young Thug’s request to have lead prosecutors Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love and Deputy District Attorney Simone Hylton disqualified from the trial based on the ex-parte meeting that took place between Judge Glanville, prosecutors, and one of the witnesses, Kenneth Copeland, “Lil Woody.” She said she would not rule on the motion until she could review the ex-parte meeting transcript. After doing so, she can determine if the prosecutors’ actions were coercive.
Young Thug is on trial after the state brought a 65-count indictment in May 2022 containing 191 “overt acts” while participating in alleged gang activities through YSL, known in the streets as “Young Slime Life.” Young Thug states that YSL stands for Young Stoner Records, and his associates are not gang members.