Quantavious Grier - Williams’ brother, the rapper Unfoonk - is charged with theft by receiving stolen property, a Taurus 9-millimeter handgun. Another, Christian Eppinger, is accused of seriously wounding an Atlanta police officer in a February shooting. His videos and songs, messages and images, they argue, are part of a broader pattern of criminal activity, “protecting and enhancing the reputation, power and territory of the enterprise” and “demonstrating allegiance to the enterprise and a willingness to engage in violence on its behalf.”įive defendants - including the rapper Yak Gotti, whose real name is Deamonte Kendrick - are charged with murder. Prosecutors allege that as Young Thug, Williams promoted and popularized YSL. Then they have to demonstrate that those crimes were carried out by two or more people as part of a broader enterprise of racketeering activity that the defendant controlled or was employed by. To be found guilty, the state has to prove that the defendant committed two or more predicate crimes, such as murder or theft. Williams, for example, would not have to have committed a murder to be convicted if he were found to have participated in an interrelated pattern of criminal activity. Under RICO, a complicated statute closely modeled on the 1970 federal law that was used to convict top mobsters and gangsters who engaged in organized crime, a defendant need not have committed a crime to be found guilty. Using Georgia’s RICO statute, prosecutors identify Williams and 27 other people as members of what they allege is a criminal street gang that conspired to illegally obtain money and property through a pattern of racketeering activity including murder, aggravated assault and threats of violence. The Fulton County district attorney’s office laid out a decadelong narrative that places Williams, who grew up in southwest Atlanta’s Sylvan Hills neighborhood, as one of three founders of Young Slime Life, a local gang established in 2012 that claims affiliation with the national Bloods gang. But prosecutors allege Young Thug’s music is not mere artistry or gritty work of fiction, but propaganda designed to attract new recruits to YSL and inspire criminal acts of violence.
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