How did the young thug go from a never-ending gang trial to walking away a free man?

When Young Thug was released on Thursday (October 31) after more than two years in custody, it didn't come out of nowhere. It was the crescendo of a series of events that began months ago, turning an endless, often delayed trial into a moment of catharsis for the superstar artist.

In June, the trial against Young Thug's alleged 'YSL' gang had been going on for more than a year, spanning 10 months of jury selection and five months of testimony. As prosecutors worked through a huge list of witnesses, there was no clear end in sight – the trial was expected to last until 2025, but even that was just speculation.

Until this week, the state was handing out plea deals to many defendants, including offering Thug one that would send him home immediately. He refused to take it, and his lawyers felt bold enough to simply plead guilty and hope the judge would let him go — a gamble that paid off.

After a whirlwind week, it's worth asking: How the hell did we get here?

The story begins on June 10, when Thug's lawyer Brian Steele made a surprising revelation in an open field. He said he learned of a secret “ex parte” meeting between Judge Ural Glanvilleprosecutors and a key witness are named Kenneth Copelandand claimed it warranted a mistrial.

Up until that point, Glanville's handling of the case had resulted in an extremely slow pace. Although a sprawling racketeering case against multiple defendants always took time, Glanville's approach — with an unprecedented 10-month jury selection process, repeated “comfort breaks” and other deposition delays — had put the case on pace, the longest in history of the state.

At the June hearing, Steel claimed much more than a bad beat from Judge Glanville. He claimed that during the secret meeting, Glanville had helped prosecutors coerce the uncooperative Copeland into testifying by threatening lengthy prison terms, all without notifying defense counsel.

The revelation set in motion case-changing events. Instead of addressing Steel's concerns, Glanville repeatedly demanded to know who had told him about the meeting. When Steel refused to do so, the judge held him in criminal contempt and sentenced him to prison – a decision that was later overturned on appeal.

In the weeks that followed, Glanville repeatedly argued that the ex parte meeting was proper. But amid a barrage of demands to either declare a mistrial or resign, he eventually referred the matter to another judge to decide whether he could continue to preside over the trial.

On July 15, Judge Rachel Krause he said he couldn't. Although he ruled that the meeting did not appear to be illegal, the judge ruled that Glanville would recuse himself from the case in order to preserve “public confidence in the justice system.”

This decision overturned the case Judge Paige Reese WhitakerFulton County lawyer with a reputation for efficiency. She quickly showed why: On her first day on the bench, Whitaker said she wanted to pick up the pace, requiring prosecutors to be more organized in how they presented witnesses and testimony. “It won't take another seven months,” Whitaker said at that hearing.

In late September, Whitaker appeared to have reached her breaking point with prosecutors trying the case. Visibly frustrated at a Sept. 30 hearing, the judge blasted Chief Deputy D.A. Adrian Love and other government lawyers for “bad lawyering,” saying their “haphazard” approach made the trial more difficult for everyone involved.

“It baffles me that someone with the years of experience that you have, every now and then, continues to seemingly and intentionally hide the ball as much as you can, for as long as you can,” Whitaker. he said. “I really don't want to believe it's intentional, but honestly, after a certain amount of time, you start to wonder how it could be anything other than that.”

Weeks later, this same “random” approach led to an incident that set the stage for Thug's eventual release

During witness testimony on October 23, prosecutors questioned a witness named Woonie Lee (aka Slimelife Shawty), a former defendant in the YSL case who signed a plea deal in exchange for testifying.

While on the stand, prosecutors asked Lee to identify some defendants by showing him social media posts. While reading one of the posts, Lee read aloud the hashtag #freequa — a reference to a previous prison sentence for Marquavius ​​Huey (aka Qua), one of Thug's current co-defendants.

This was a critical error by the prosecutors. Jurors were not supposed to know which defendants had been incarcerated before, and defense attorneys argued that the government should have deleted the publication and primed Lee not to mention it. After being admitted to the jury, defense attorneys quickly moved to a mistrial. “We shall not be able to raise this bell,” said one.

The error quickly drew another round of criticism from Whitaker, who at one point told prosecutors she was trying to find a way to “fix your sloppiness so everybody hasn't wasted 10 to 12 months of their lives on this trial ». While she declined to grant a mistrial that would permanently end the case, Whitaker warned that she could order the mass trial to start over.

Faced with this devastating prospect, prosecutors and defense attorneys quickly began talking about plea deals. No one wanted a mistrial: the DA's office had already sunk years of taxpayer dollars into the costly case, and the defendants had already sat in jail for years awaiting a verdict.

Days later, three of Young Thug's co-defendants — Quamarvious NicholsMarquavius ​​”Qua” Huey and Rodalius “Lil Rod” Ryan — all reached deals with prosecutors. Two more – Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell — who face some of the most serious charges in the case, have declined to do so.

Like the other defense attorneys, Thug's attorneys (Steel and co-counsel Keith Adams) spoke with prosecutors during the week to negotiate a possible deal. But at a news conference Thursday, Adams said the DA's office did not approach the talks in “good faith” and appeared to be simply trying to “save face.” Although they offered to let Thug off the case with only 15 years of probation and no prison time, Adams said they also insisted on onerous conditions under which Thug would corroborate the state's charges against him.

With a judge who had shown she was highly skeptical of prosecutors trying the case, Steel said Thursday that Thug and his legal team made the “tough” decision to plead guilty without a plea bargain — and trust Judge Whitaker for a leniency sentence.

“The negotiations completely fell apart with the DA's office, they failed miserably,” Steel told reporters. “At that point we believed that justice could be found with the honorable court. Jeffrey just wanted to go home.”

The traffic was extremely dangerous. Prosecutors immediately told the judge that, absent plea negotiations, they were seeking a draconian sentence against Thug: 45 years, 25 of which would be served in prison and another 20 on probation.

After that, both Steel and Thug addressed the court, offering impassioned pleas for a light sentence. But before Whittaker handed down her sentence—just 15 years of probation, allowing Thug to go home that day—she seemed more swayed by the behavior of the prosecutors themselves.

“It's not lost on the court that the state … was willing to reject outright [several counts] and he was willing to impose a sentence that allowed Mr Williams to walk out the door today,” the judge said. “[The state] he doesn't seem particularly concerned that Mr. Williams, if out on the streets, would be a danger to society.”

After the sentence, Thug hugged his lawyers. By late Thursday afternoon, he had been released.