YSL Trial Ends With Young Thug’s Final 2 Co-Defendants Being Acquitted

The YSL trial has finally come to a close after nearly two years.

Georgia’s longest criminal trial concluded on Tuesday, and the final two co-defendants in the YSL case were acquitted after receiving not-guilty verdicts.

Defendants Deamonte Kendrick, a rapper known as Yak Gotti, and Shannon Stillwell were acquitted on Tuesday after a jury of 12 found them not guilty of charges related to Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, NBC News reports. The charges included the 2015 drive-by shooting of an alleged rival gang member and conspiracy to violate RICO.

Stillwell was also facing murder charges in connection with the 2022 killing of another alleged rival gang member. He was found guilty of one felony gun possession charge, which Superior Court Judge Paige Whitaker sentenced him to 10 years with credit for two years served since his arrest and the rest on probation.

Kendrick and Stillwell’s acquittals come weeks after other co-defendants, including rapper Young Thug, reached plea deals. Judge Whitaker expressed gratitude to the jurors selected in January 2023, who spent nearly two years on a trial marked by numerous surprising developments.

“I cannot express the degree of thanks that Fulton County owes you for your service given the length of this trial,” Whitaker told the jurors.

Some of the trial’s most talked-about moments included prosecutors using Young Thug’s (real name Jeffery Lamar Williams) rap lyrics to link him to violence and illegal activities, the rapper’s lawyer being arrested and sentenced to 10 weekends in jail for contempt of court, allegations of drug exchanges between co-defendants, uncooperative key witnesses, the previous judge’s recusal after holding a private meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis facing backlash for a “waste of time” motion, among other notable events.

By the end of the trial, the state had called over 175 witnesses for 26 of the 28 co-defendants, while the defense for Stillwell and Kendrick called no witnesses. The final verdict came days after Kendrick was stabbed on Sunday in a Fulton County Jail annex. He embraced his lawyer upon hearing the not-guilty verdict on Dec. 3.

Willis’ spokesperson, Jeff DiSantis, released a statement about the verdict on her behalf, saying, “We always respect the verdict of a jury.”