January 24, 2024 • 38 mins
With the jury seated and the YSL trial well underway, the King Slime team kicks off a bi-weekly discussion breaking down the most important, most interesting and most absurd moments of the craziest trial in hip hop’s history.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the law of the Jungle, as old and
as true.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
As the sty We investigated many incidents that were determined
to be related to the gang's activities, actual criminal activity,
criminal behavior by the gang and.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Wolf that show he is may a wolf that show
grades must.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Die he had ever made as a musical artist and
help the family himself and as many others out of
this endless cycle of homelessness.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
He would be truly humble under God. That's what fotus.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
As a creeper that girdles the tree, Trump the law buddy,
forward and back.
Speaker 6 (01:01):
You'll see a car soon down Midaniel Street towards the
north side. Drive on that January nine and a years
from the video, and you will see that it will
start shooting out in the sun roof in the direction
of Donavan, Thomas and others, and you'll see that surveillance video.
Speaker 7 (01:22):
Or what it is and what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
But the strength of the pack is the wolf, and
the strength.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
Of the wolf is the pack.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Dud Remember the White Sail Hop, Jafferylians Team Slot.
Speaker 8 (01:44):
Yes, I'm George Cheaty and I'm Christina Lee.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And Liz is king sly the prosecution of Young Thug
and ysl. Now that the jury has been seated and
the Ysol trial is well underway, we're changing up the
format a bit.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
This time.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
We're going to be analyzing the proceedings as they unfold
in a lively discussion.
Speaker 9 (02:27):
And it will be lively, so we'll use our knowledge
of the case and what we've gathered from the production
of our limited series too at context insight because we're smart. Look,
we're joined by our executive producer, Tommy Andres, who will
help to moderate our conversations.
Speaker 10 (02:46):
Yeah, thank you guys very much. This is fun. Right,
we'll dive right in because the thing about this first
episode is we have tons of ground to cover. Yeah,
because the jury's been seated for a while now. We've
obviously touched on some of this stuff in our limited series,
but we've got lots to talk about today.
Speaker 9 (02:59):
Now.
Speaker 10 (02:59):
George, you spent a lot of time in the courtroom
for this obviously, and you've also covered lots of murder
trials in the past. How is this trial different so
far from what you've seen?
Speaker 9 (03:08):
So it's nuts, It's just I mean, it's easy to say,
like Oh, it's bonkers. But it is unlike like any
murder trial I've seen, and it's unlike other rico cases frankly,
because there are a lot of defendants and a lot
of lawyers, and they're all pulling for in six different
directions all at once, and so it bogs everything down
(03:32):
and everything takes longer, like there's an ensemble performance around
every witness, and we're seeing that right now with Trontavius Stevens.
That's Tick, who's uh, one of the folks's defendant who
cut a deal, made a plea. It has to testify,
and it's excruciating to watch. And if he's taken two
(03:57):
weeks and he's one guy and they've got four hundred.
Speaker 11 (04:01):
Witnesses prosecution, you mean correct.
Speaker 9 (04:04):
I don't know when this is going to end. Nobody
in that courtroom knows when this is going to be over.
Speaker 10 (04:09):
So, Christina, what are some of your broader impressions watching
this trial?
Speaker 11 (04:13):
Well, am I non expert opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This is to verify what George is saying, taking forever
and the scope of it, I think is what's really
overwhelming me the most, because somehow, over the course of
a couple of weeks I've heard Lebron James's name mentioned twice?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Do you know who Lebron James is? Who is Telelasion
gem and Jerry? Who Lebron James? NBA?
Speaker 10 (04:38):
Okay?
Speaker 12 (04:39):
And have you seen him do the wiping of the
nose and say slime?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And there's good reason why people might be asking why
are we hearing about Lebron James in a court case
that concerns Atlanta?
Speaker 11 (04:54):
But I am completely.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Overwhelmed and I need show like this to really help
my mind around what the hell is going on?
Speaker 10 (05:04):
Yeah, I mean we touched on the opening statements a
little bit in our limited series and we got to
play a little a couple of clips from those, but
there's so much more to talk about really with those
opening statements. So what do you think we learned from
both sides? And I'll start with you, George.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
So one of the things that came out, I mean,
I spent years, better than a year looking at this case.
Had no idea that the cops had tape of the
Donovan Thomas murder, Like there's surveillance video of the drive
by the case.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Is shooting of Donavan Thomas was caught on surveillance video.
Now I'm not going to suggest it's the highest quality
surveillance video, but it was caught aurveillance video, and you'll
be able to watch the surveillance video.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
And I'm looking so sooner I heard that, I'm like, why
the act didn't they How why did this take seven
years to come to add to a And it turns
out it's they had an early witness, or so they thought,
who was lying to them, and it derailed their initial
(06:10):
investigation and prosecution. These are all things that we've been
waiting for for years to come out, and now finally
it starts to hit the opening in the opening statements, And.
Speaker 10 (06:22):
We learned about that from Max Shart, right, who's Shannon
Stillwell's defense attorney, who in our show a bunch.
Speaker 9 (06:27):
Shannon Stillwell is one of the people who's accused of
killing Donovan Thomas, and the police have long suspected him
of being the shooter. He's accused of that murder and
another murder. And so Max Shart, more than maybe even
Brian Steele is, you know, has to get on the
bicycle and roll like through this whole thing. Like if
(06:48):
they prove that murder, they've got a bunch of other
stuff that everybody basically goes down because that is a
clear gang crime. So Sharp is like a constant presence
and is constantly talking about like, no, this part piece
of evidence is bad. Oh, this videotape, well, it's like this, Oh,
(07:11):
this witness was bad. Oh. The fact that there was
an ankle monitor on my guy that puts him at
the scene of one of these murders. We could discount
that these are the reasons why. And I'm still listening
to this, like they had this much evidence, like what.
Speaker 10 (07:26):
So yeah, and Christina, what did you think about the
opening statements?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
At least on the defense side, it was to an extent,
it was what I expected, right, which is that Brian
Steele Young Thugs lawyer was going to portray his client
as a really hard working, up and cooming musician out
of Cleveland Avenue and somebody who, frankly is too famous
to concern himself with anything involving like a criminal street gang.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Jeffie Williams is a Grammy Award winner.
Speaker 13 (07:57):
He is not sitting there telling people to people he
doesn't need their money.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Jeffrey's work keens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So that much I expected I guess what I didn't
expect was to learn that the thug and young Thug
is an acronym and that it stands for truly humble
under God.
Speaker 13 (08:20):
The means to Jeffrey something very personal. It was his
path he could ever make as a.
Speaker 12 (08:30):
Musical artist and help the family, himself and as many
others out of this endless cycle of hopelessness.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
He would be truly humble under God. That's what thug means.
Speaker 10 (08:53):
This really made rounds on the internet too. I mean
lots of people were kind of chimming in on social media.
Speaker 11 (08:57):
But about that face.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
Every time somebody says this truly humble under God thing,
like you just need to like this needs to be
like Bert in that gift where he's just staring at
you like he's gonna kill you, Like, uh huh no,
nobody believe I don't look people, there are people in
this world who will believe this. I don't know those people.
Please introduce me to those people.
Speaker 11 (09:21):
Listen. It was surprising because during his opening.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Same as Brian Steele, essentially says a young thug has
two artistic influences.
Speaker 13 (09:27):
And Jeffrey studied two rap artists, particularly he idolized a
gentleman named Dwayne Card.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
His performing name is Little Wayne. Jeffrey also idolized.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Cheapo one being low Wayne, which was apparent from the
moment that he started rapping essentially the other though being
less obvious, and that was Tupac. So Tupac had the
words thug life tattooed across as abdomen, but they never
meant for that to be taken literally. It was always
supposed to be a statement that stood for the hate
(10:06):
you give little infants fucks everybody. So what Brian Steele
was saying was that Young Thug took influence from that
and said that the Thug and Young Thug was going
to stand for that much more. However, I feel like
even for the biggest Young Thug fans, that was news
to them.
Speaker 9 (10:24):
Like, as I'm listening to this, I'm going like, one,
who's the audience for this statement? Because like, it doesn't
matter whether or not I believe it. Sure, I'm a cynic.
I think everybody's lying to me all the time. Like
the question is whether or not twelve jurors and four
alternates hearing that will go it's plausible, Like.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Don't I don't know, Well, I mean They're also supposed
to answer questions, you know, as they were being selected
about how aware they were even about rap music, young
Thug or whatever. So I mean, wouldn't that mean that
this would all be news to them essentially?
Speaker 9 (10:58):
Yes, I mean there are nine black on that and
not that you just make presumptions about people's musical tastes,
But there are nine black jurors, you know, in Atlanta,
Like I would expect them to have sort of a
baseline understanding, not so much about young Thug. Look, I'm
fifty years old. I've said this a lot. If it's
post Wu Tang clan, I need help. But but you
(11:21):
know it's Tupac. I mean, if you're a fifty year old,
you know what Tupac's about, like, and so this idea
that you know, he's drawing from Tupac in this specific way,
Like all of a sudden, the introduction of lyrics into
a case starts to make sense from their perspective, It's like, oh,
(11:45):
really that's what that was about. Show me, Like at
which point both the prosecution and the defense are going
to be like, Okay, well he said this and this
and this and these lyrics because he made this statement
like this is what his music's about.
Speaker 10 (12:00):
Here we go, We'll be back after the break. Well,
I will say his sister back in December of twenty
twenty two did tweet out this very thing that truly
Humble under God is what Thug was meant to imply.
(12:23):
That's where he got his name from. So there was
some precedent for that. But whether she I mean, he'd
already been arrested at that point, so whether she was
sort of laying the groundwork for this idea that they
were going to put in court as interesting. So when
I heard it, I was like, oh, I remember, I
think Dora was the sister that said it in a tweet.
I remember she had tweeted that at some point because
we were keeping tabs on everything, and so it was
(12:44):
interesting to see that pop back up in court. I
think with Brian Steele saying it, I mean, on some.
Speaker 9 (12:49):
Level I get what he's trying to do here, like
it's he wants to make this case about Young Thug's fame,
like dumb Thug is, why would Young Thug burn his
career for this stuff?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, it's about fame and also just how prevalent gang
culture is in pop music culture to the point where
it's like, can you take every signifier in every hip
hop context?
Speaker 10 (13:11):
Literally?
Speaker 11 (13:12):
I think he's trying to cast a shadow of doubt.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
There, and in that regard, I think he's doing is
the best job you could do.
Speaker 10 (13:21):
So Opening Stamas began right after Thanksgiving, so we've been
going for a little while here. We talked about some
witnesses already. Trantaviou Stevens, We'll get back to him in
a minute, but tell me about some of the earliest
witnesses we saw basically to start out with the parade
of police officers right.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
Starting with Mark Bellnap. Mark bell Napp is sort of
generally understood as like the prime gang investigator for the APD,
but also generally in the state. He sits on the
board of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association, lectures across the
state on this stuff. Is an expert witness in a
(13:56):
bunch of different trials. It would actually be weird for
them to not bring bell Nap in to start this
thing because he knows more about like broad gang culture
and gang activity and gang members, Like he can go
and talk to actual gang members and say this is real,
and they'll say yeah, that's no, that's not This guy's
a that's a fake, like that's his job, and so
(14:20):
bell naps there. These started laying out the history, like
this is what we know of Rock Crew.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Raised on Cleveland, and it was one of the earliest
of those gangs that I told you earlier called hybrid gangs.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
They were a local group, obviously raised on Cleveland. They're
saying we were all from Cleveland Avenue area. They're all
from that area. But we began seeing them and observing them.
Speaker 13 (14:43):
Picking up the identifiers and we would traditionally associate with
gangs that are associated with the bloods. They started wearing
red bandanas, They started using the number five, including in
five point stars.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
They started using their own hand sign.
Speaker 9 (14:58):
And then taking that through thirty D to yasel at
least from the police perspective, Like the thing is, this
is the police perspective, like the whole point of a
trial is for a defense attorneys going, well, that's not
actually how that.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Works, right, right, right, And we heard a lot of
this actually during the making of our show when we
talked with investigator Kimberly Underwood.
Speaker 14 (15:22):
He wasn't young thug when I met he was Jeffrey Williams.
He was a part of a hybrid game rock Crew.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I think there was some parallels there where she talked
about how initially Rock Crew we're getting in, we're you know,
stealing from ATMs and all that.
Speaker 14 (15:36):
Back when I started the investigations, we had a lot
of ATM thefts around the Cleveland Avenue neighborhood. We knew
for the fact that Rock Crew were in both, and
it's rumors that, you know, they used the proceeds from
the actual ATM thefts to get into the studio and
blow up. So it's like you said that the chrominal
(15:57):
activity starts and then they build their way.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Up, and that how that actually became the president for
what we know now as like why to sell the
purported record label.
Speaker 14 (16:07):
Because you have to put money into studios to actually
you know, become rappers.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
And then after that, there's just a bunch of different
police officers, like we're talking about beat cops from Zone
three that's South Atlanta, who had arrested this guy or
that guy or the other guy, because they're the job
of the prosecution at this point is to prove the
gang case. On top of the rico thing like and
(16:33):
to do that, you've got to prove that, why I sell,
was an illegal street gang. It's perfectly legal to belong
to a gang, a street gang, but if there if
the gang is about committing crimes, then it's illegal, like
and then you have to prove that the person is
a member of that gang. And then you have to
prove that that person committed a crime which counts under
(16:56):
the gang statute and would have been furthering the interests
of the gang. And so they've got a first show like, well,
here are all the crimes that we and big crimes
and little crimes, like everything from the murder case to
like a criminal trespass because you're on a Harvard board.
Speaker 10 (17:14):
Right, Yeah, Actually, let's talk about that one in particular,
because we talked about this I think in the podcast,
this small crime that was pegged on Young Thug early.
What do you think, Christina, Can you talk a little
bit more about that?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting to bring this incident back
up in the context of the indictment because I think
in the grainder scheme of Young Thug's career now it's
almost kind of a footnote. I think I actually did
have to jog my memory a little bit as to what.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
Actually happened there.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But the incident that we're talking about is what happened
at Perimeter Mall when a mall security guard, yeah, like
approach Young Thug who was riding on a hoverboard in
the mall when he wasn't supposed to, and then like
in the midst of all that, as they're trying to
settle things, Young Thug essentially said, I'm going to shoot
you in the face.
Speaker 9 (18:00):
It's not clear it was actually Young Thug who said that.
It was somebody in the car, right.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
But what's interesting is that even if who said that
wasn't clear at the time, because Young Thug is coming
up as a hip hop artist and getting profiled in
the likes of New York Times and GQ, it actually
kind of becomes part of his lore. At the time,
it was helping to illustrate Young Thug as like Atlanta
hip hop's new bad boy. But in the grander scheme
(18:25):
of things, of course, you know, he's been on SNL,
he sold number one albums, he has artists like under his.
Speaker 11 (18:31):
Tutelage, and so to then see.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
The mall security guard take the wit or take the
stand was really interesting because it especially for those who
have been following Young Thug's career, it's like, oh, we're
going to go that far back. We're going we're examining
the full essentially the full extent of Young Thug's career
as we know it, because this incident occurred in what
twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
And there was a particularly difficult witness to watch, right,
I mean, this is a man that suffered a stroke.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
Yeah, apparently last year, and so like they didn't show
his face by the way, like you got to be
in court to see him, and I mean the stroke
was apparent both in like how he was speaking and
what his appearance was like. And he couldn't remember much.
Like he's looking through the paperwork and he's like, I
don't actually remember signing this.
Speaker 15 (19:20):
I don't remember providing this statement at all.
Speaker 9 (19:25):
I don't remember looking at this. I don't remember. Prosecution
had to know he was going to be a hard,
hard witness, like, but they put him on anyway because
that they needed him in order to authenticate the document,
and they did it the best way they could. It
shows that they're throwing spaghetti at the wall. Whatever they've got,
(19:47):
everything they've got like because if you could admit something,
you would omit that in order to say this is
a gang these are gang things like and I, especially
with that one, You've got to start asking questions about
if I'm the juror jury, I'm asking questions about, like,
(20:08):
what are you calling gang crimes?
Speaker 10 (20:11):
Yeah. So the next witness, uh notable witness that we'll
talk about today is Trontavius Stevens.
Speaker 16 (20:17):
We brought up earlier, Are okay?
Speaker 10 (20:32):
Now he made a deal, as you mentioned, to testify
in this trial for more lenient sentence, and now is
compelled to testify by this deal. So you know, obviously
what Max Shark would say about him and has said
about these witnesses in general, is that you know, hey,
these guys made deals to save their own skin. They
can't be trusted. So Trontavia Stephen has to earn the
(20:54):
trust in order to be a good witness for the prosecution.
So tell me a bit about what you saw from
Trentavious Stephens.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
Tronevious Stephens is tap dancing as best he can. He
is ice skating on thin ice.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
He is.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
In trouble still, like only it's not just the prosecution,
it's the street. So his deal says he must testify
when called, he must testify that YL is a street gang,
that is an illegal street gang, that it committed crimes,
that these are the crimes, and that these are the members.
(21:32):
And he's said he's a founder of YSL, So he's
somebody who they say will be able to say who
was actually a LEGITIMATEYL gang member. Like, those were the
terms of his deal, and if he doesn't perform, he
goes to prison for eight years. The problem is, if
(21:53):
he does perform, the street says, you're a snitch, and
like if there are other wise guys who want to
hurt him, they can get to him. So he's sitting
there trying to fulfill the terms of his deal without
getting himself killed. And I'm just going to say, like,
I think that that is something that he is thinking
(22:14):
about every time he opens his mouth, and it's why
it takes him ten seconds to answer a question because
he's like, what is the what is the answer I
could give that that creates the least amount of risk.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Do you recall answering to the jury that the record
label was positivity and that gay was negative.
Speaker 10 (22:36):
And young the gay the.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Entity the thing that you.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Wanted the fathuly members of.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Oh I was a music?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
You were a fouding, a member of.
Speaker 9 (22:55):
So community crimes.
Speaker 15 (23:01):
While being a part of why just why.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
I'm trying to answer the question I'm asking you about.
Speaker 15 (23:29):
So I committed crimes by being a part of why
sil So, by me commedying crimes by being a part
of why, Sir, that.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
It was basic to say that why I Sale was
a game.
Speaker 11 (23:47):
Technically he fulfilled his part of the argument.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
But like you said, George, like it's on a technicality, right,
because I think when I was reading the news, I
got the impression that he just got up to the
stand and said you, you and you, you're all part
of why So. But it even took a little bit
more coaxing to get him to that point, right.
Speaker 9 (24:03):
It took him three days, like the prosecutors had three
days before he would actually say that straight up in this.
Speaker 14 (24:11):
Short room right now, are members of hyas Sale young slime.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Like the game?
Speaker 12 (24:19):
All of them?
Speaker 7 (24:20):
And about all of them?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Would you please call them my names?
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Quay right, you said the so did you call Jeffery
Williams stuff?
Speaker 9 (24:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Do you members of.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Hyat Sale called Jeffery Williams tea Slot.
Speaker 10 (24:49):
Yes, they did get him to say it though, which
is meaningful. I mean, it's it's in line with the
Gunn of stuff. And that's why everybody says that the
Gunna deal was so important, was because he had to say, yeah,
y so is a gang, which is one of the
things that you were talking about that they have to
prove here more on the way stay with us.
Speaker 9 (25:16):
I mean straight up, like Gunna is going to have
to go through this. If he gets called, it's the
same deal, Like he's got the same deal Gunn has
got like and so the whole snitching conversation around Gunna
has not ended because we're getting a bird's eye view
of what that's going to look like.
Speaker 10 (25:35):
What do you think about Trenttavious Stevens.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I think it was hard even beyond that perspective, It
seemed really hard to get a straight answer from him.
And it seemed like for all that he was being
asked to talk about, even during the cross examination, it was,
to put it most generously, it didn't seem like he
had the best of memory or like in any case,
(25:58):
or like you said, George May, he is being squarely
on purpose, right, So he's trying to answer the question,
but only from a technical standpoint and trying to answer
it and the least using the least amount of effort possible.
It was interesting because yet on the prosecution side you
have him speaking to affirming that, yes, like YSL was
a gang I'm.
Speaker 11 (26:19):
An amittic co founder Da da Da da Da.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
But on the other side of things, you know, Brian
Steele is essentially trying to establish that as a co
founder of YSL, you were also playing a part in
establishing YSL as a record label and what is your
role in that?
Speaker 11 (26:34):
What did you witness in that?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And so that's how you get to a line of
questioning where Tick is being asked by Brian Steele.
Speaker 11 (26:42):
Do you know who Serena Williams is?
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Do you know who Serena Williams is?
Speaker 7 (26:45):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Have you seen her at Wimbledon doing what's called the
crypt walk?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And did you see her do the crip walk that
one time as a victory dance? You know, just to
speak to the prevalence of gang culture and how it's
celebrated in pop culture, and that's why you have to
be up here at the ful and County Courthouse on
Murger saying like, I don't watch tennis. I watched ten Okay,
(27:12):
that's what we've come to now in this trial, George
and Tommy, Yeah.
Speaker 10 (27:16):
Which got a little bit of a giggle. You can
actually hear people chuckle a little bit at that line
in the court room.
Speaker 9 (27:23):
The whole trial is sort of skating on the edge
of the absurd. Like there are absurd moments, I mean,
and we've chronicled a lot of them over the course
of this, like our previous reporting and through the through
the podcast, but like every every day there's something that
like we live in a universe where lifestyles has to
be played in court as a as evidence of some
(27:46):
sort like like this this one.
Speaker 10 (27:50):
That is another moment that went viral and that was
without the jury, and that was without the jury, right,
why were they trying to use lifestyle in court? Christina?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
So, Brian Steele wanted to present lifestyle in full because
again what during the cross examination of Tick. Essentially, Brian
Steale wanted to establish that lifestyle was becoming a major
hit in the same time period that some of the
social media posts cited in the indictment was actually taking place,
(28:17):
and so he wanted to play the music video to
give greater context to why young Thug might be wearing.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
A rich Gang label or a rich gang hoodie, or like.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Why yeah, or like why he might be wearing the
color red in this instance when the color red is
also being worn pretty prominently in the music video.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
So essentially, like prosecution and defense are arguing over whether
to play this video or not, they play it in full,
and that's that was the clip that went viral. But
in the end of it all, Judge Glenville ultimately decides that,
like listen, based on how this cross examination with Tick
is going so far, maybe he's not the best witness
(28:59):
to speak to the overall intense of what is happening
around here. Basically, Judge Glamba was like, you either got
to bring in rich Homi Kwan, who is with Rich
Gang you know at the time the lifestyle is being
made and turning into this big hit, or you got
to bring in Birdman, the architect of this whole thing.
Two of the seven Hunderd witnesses that are on the list,
but probably the two most relevant to that particular piece
(29:22):
of evidence.
Speaker 10 (29:23):
We talked about how long this is taking, Like with
Trontavia Stevens, right. So he was on for five full
days and then they took a break from Martin Luther
King week that week was off, and so now we're
back and he's on the stand again. This week, I
saw a lot of social media chatter about people being like,
is this the trial's only witness because he's taking so long.
And part of the reason for this is because you
(29:46):
have six defendants, each of the lawyers gets a chance
to cross examine the witness. I just wonder the length
of this thing. Who is this impacting more the prosecution
or the defense?
Speaker 9 (29:58):
Do you think, George, It's hard to tell, Like, in
part because I'm trying to put myself in the trying
to be trying to think of yourself as a juror
who's gone, Like you're already months into this thing, Like
your life is disrupted. And every time you see some
lengthy oh my god, they're still interviewing him. Oh my god,
(30:21):
there's there's a cross examine. Oh there's another guy cross exam.
Oh we've gone three weeks on one witness. They've got
how many witnesses, Like, on some level, you got to
wonder how many of them are like just get me
out of here.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Even a three to four minute music video felt like
ages in that context.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
They're playing lifestyle from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They're trying to get pushing p to play like there's
some technical difficulties there. They're waiting for the video and
a buffer, and then they finally get to play it
in full, and I was like, this is my entire
life flashing before my eyes.
Speaker 10 (30:48):
You guys, I heard Glenville ask if the jury wanted
to break at one point after something, and they were
You could hear like yes, Like I mean there was,
like seriously, there were I mean, there's some exasperating and
I do one. It feels like this works against the
prosecution to me because they're the ones. They're the reason
we're all here, right, They're the reason everyone's in the
courtroom is they brought these charges against them. They have
(31:10):
the burden of proof, and so I'm when I think
of like what a juror would be thinking in that seat,
Like if I'm in that seat, I'm like, God, this
is taking so long, and I kind of you know,
who's conducting the orchestra, right?
Speaker 9 (31:22):
Yeah. One of the other things here is the likelihood
of a mistrial, And it's more than just the potential
for misconduct, Like, you got a bunch of folks who
are fifty sixty so maybe seventy years old on the jury.
Any of them get COVID and there have to be
out for a week. Either you stop the trial for
a week or you knock that juror off the trial.
(31:44):
You got twelve jurors and four alternates, which means you
can lose four. When you lose five, you're done. You
have to start over. Oh goodness, gracious, can you imagine
that's true.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
There was their homework assignment during the MLK week. They're like,
you know, make sure you're up to date on all
your vaccines and don't talk to anybody about this ever.
Speaker 11 (32:08):
Okay, we can't start over.
Speaker 10 (32:10):
Yeah, I mean, mistrial's an absolute nightmare and we saw
some close calls early in the trial because of discovery rules.
I mean, the prosecution has been burned a couple of
times for not sharing evidence properly through discovery.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
Until prosecutors start getting punished for this, either with reversals
or with sanctions, like apparently they're just going to keep
doing it. It is a thing that the Fulton County
like District Attorney's office is doing. And it's not just
this case. They will magically operate a bunch of discovery
at the latest possible moment and not when they immediately
(32:44):
have it, and it's leverage as far as they're concerned.
Speaker 11 (32:47):
You say, you've seen it in other cases too.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
It's happened to the YFN case, the sort of sister
case to this, where one of the defendants, Bloody j
they drop the charges on him after her discovery demand
by his attorney. That trial, by the way, which has
been delayed a year because of the YFN case or
why is hell case started a jury selection last week.
Speaker 10 (33:14):
So one last thing in the same vein, and then
I think we wrap up for today. But you know
this Fannie willis news. There's accusations that she's had some
sort of affair with one of the lead prosecutors on
the Trump case, Right, Nathan Wade is his name?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Is that?
Speaker 9 (33:29):
Right? That is correct?
Speaker 10 (33:31):
So we don't want to get into this sort of
details of this, obviously, but I would like to ask
both of you if this could impact this trial at all.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's certainly making it harder for jurors to not pay
attention to anything, because that's kind of their duties, right,
They're supposed to bury their head in the sand in
order to maintain a completely unbiased look at the landscape.
How are the hell are they supposed to do that
when Fannie Willis is a national figure in part because
the why Cell trial exists, among others, among others, of course.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
Yep, I don't. I don't want to get into funny well,
it's his personal stuff.
Speaker 10 (34:10):
I you know.
Speaker 9 (34:12):
The problem is there's money on the line, and the biggest,
the bigger than why is okay, So I'll say that,
like prosecuting Trump, probably more important. The thing is like
she's not saying no and so, and as long as
it's out there, like that's the news story. Because we
live in like the hellscape that is twenty twenty four
(34:35):
where this sort of thing is what people pay attention to.
The money is important. I care about the money. I
care about the potential that she was funneling money to
somebody who was ultimately funneling it back to her in
the form of gifts. That's a problem, and.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
It might be considered insults injury, right because I'm seeing
a new guy in tocologist and she was one of
the two thousand perspective jurors, you know that was to
be seen for the y Cel trial. And the first
thing she says about this trial more than anything else,
is like waste of taxpayer dollars. So imagine, like like
all of our other constituents, right, like, what are they
(35:20):
thinking about when they're thinking about the y Cell trial
taking place? Maybe the first thought isn't like, oh, it's
great to see you know, people being put to justice
that we'll finally get a handle of, like this this
crime wave, the gang problem. The first thought that comes
to their mind might be, what a waste of my
tax being dollars? And I don't think this news necessarily helps, No.
Speaker 9 (35:43):
Because money because money.
Speaker 10 (35:46):
Well, any final thoughts.
Speaker 9 (35:48):
You know, there's still a lot of trial here, and
we haven't gotten to the We haven't gotten to the
most important witnesses, in my opinion, the police officers who
had been investigating this case all long, Like they really
haven't testified yet, none of the big like Birdman, Rich
Homie Kwan. You know, there's a whole musical aside of
(36:11):
this because at some point, like basically the defense is
going to say music is on trial. This is what
it looks like, you know, there's there's a lot of
drama coming, you know, and I'm just I'm thinking, this
is the rest of my life now, this is what
I'm going to be doing until I die. That's my
(36:32):
last thought about it.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
All right, Well, the rest of our adult lives are covered,
and I'm at least glad to be on this ride with.
Speaker 9 (36:38):
Both of you.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
You know, in the future, we may have some guests,
some of the people that we've had on the show,
some new people maybe that'll come in and sit with
us and talk about this case. We'll be on every
other week, and if you have any questions, anything you
want to hear us talk about. I think the best
way to probably handle that is to hit up George
and Christina's Twitter handles. So can you guys just say
(37:00):
what those are?
Speaker 9 (37:01):
My handle is Neon Flag.
Speaker 11 (37:03):
And mine is Mina an Lee.
Speaker 7 (37:06):
All Right with that, That.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
Concludes the very first episode of King Slime, The Discussion.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Airloom Media.
Speaker 9 (37:27):
It's written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee, and
Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyre and
Taylor Chakoi.
Speaker 9 (37:35):
The executive producer and editor is Tommy andres.
Speaker 11 (37:38):
Our theme music is by Done Deal.
Speaker 9 (37:41):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is the law of the Jungle, as old and
as true.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
As the sty We investigated many incidents that were determined
to be related to the gang's activities, actual criminal activity,
criminal behavior by the gang and.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Wolf that show he is may a wolf that show
grades must.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Die he had ever made as a musical artist and
help the family himself and as many others out of
this endless cycle of homelessness.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
He would be truly humble under God. That's what fotus.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
As a creeper that girdles the tree, Trump the law buddy,
forward and back.
Speaker 6 (01:01):
You'll see a car soon down Midaniel Street towards the
north side. Drive on that January nine and a years
from the video, and you will see that it will
start shooting out in the sun roof in the direction
of Donavan, Thomas and others, and you'll see that surveillance video.
Speaker 7 (01:22):
Or what it is and what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
But the strength of the pack is the wolf, and
the strength.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
Of the wolf is the pack.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Dud Remember the White Sail Hop, Jafferylians Team Slot.
Speaker 8 (01:44):
Yes, I'm George Cheaty and I'm Christina Lee.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And Liz is king sly the prosecution of Young Thug
and ysl. Now that the jury has been seated and
the Ysol trial is well underway, we're changing up the
format a bit.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
This time.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
We're going to be analyzing the proceedings as they unfold
in a lively discussion.
Speaker 9 (02:27):
And it will be lively, so we'll use our knowledge
of the case and what we've gathered from the production
of our limited series too at context insight because we're smart. Look,
we're joined by our executive producer, Tommy Andres, who will
help to moderate our conversations.
Speaker 10 (02:46):
Yeah, thank you guys very much. This is fun. Right,
we'll dive right in because the thing about this first
episode is we have tons of ground to cover. Yeah,
because the jury's been seated for a while now. We've
obviously touched on some of this stuff in our limited series,
but we've got lots to talk about today.
Speaker 9 (02:59):
Now.
Speaker 10 (02:59):
George, you spent a lot of time in the courtroom
for this obviously, and you've also covered lots of murder
trials in the past. How is this trial different so
far from what you've seen?
Speaker 9 (03:08):
So it's nuts, It's just I mean, it's easy to say,
like Oh, it's bonkers. But it is unlike like any
murder trial I've seen, and it's unlike other rico cases frankly,
because there are a lot of defendants and a lot
of lawyers, and they're all pulling for in six different
directions all at once, and so it bogs everything down
(03:32):
and everything takes longer, like there's an ensemble performance around
every witness, and we're seeing that right now with Trontavius Stevens.
That's Tick, who's uh, one of the folks's defendant who
cut a deal, made a plea. It has to testify,
and it's excruciating to watch. And if he's taken two
(03:57):
weeks and he's one guy and they've got four hundred.
Speaker 11 (04:01):
Witnesses prosecution, you mean correct.
Speaker 9 (04:04):
I don't know when this is going to end. Nobody
in that courtroom knows when this is going to be over.
Speaker 10 (04:09):
So, Christina, what are some of your broader impressions watching
this trial?
Speaker 11 (04:13):
Well, am I non expert opinion.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This is to verify what George is saying, taking forever
and the scope of it, I think is what's really
overwhelming me the most, because somehow, over the course of
a couple of weeks I've heard Lebron James's name mentioned twice?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Do you know who Lebron James is? Who is Telelasion
gem and Jerry? Who Lebron James? NBA?
Speaker 10 (04:38):
Okay?
Speaker 12 (04:39):
And have you seen him do the wiping of the
nose and say slime?
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And there's good reason why people might be asking why
are we hearing about Lebron James in a court case
that concerns Atlanta?
Speaker 11 (04:54):
But I am completely.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Overwhelmed and I need show like this to really help
my mind around what the hell is going on?
Speaker 10 (05:04):
Yeah, I mean we touched on the opening statements a
little bit in our limited series and we got to
play a little a couple of clips from those, but
there's so much more to talk about really with those
opening statements. So what do you think we learned from
both sides? And I'll start with you, George.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
So one of the things that came out, I mean,
I spent years, better than a year looking at this case.
Had no idea that the cops had tape of the
Donovan Thomas murder, Like there's surveillance video of the drive
by the case.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Is shooting of Donavan Thomas was caught on surveillance video.
Now I'm not going to suggest it's the highest quality
surveillance video, but it was caught aurveillance video, and you'll
be able to watch the surveillance video.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
And I'm looking so sooner I heard that, I'm like, why
the act didn't they How why did this take seven
years to come to add to a And it turns
out it's they had an early witness, or so they thought,
who was lying to them, and it derailed their initial
(06:10):
investigation and prosecution. These are all things that we've been
waiting for for years to come out, and now finally
it starts to hit the opening in the opening statements, And.
Speaker 10 (06:22):
We learned about that from Max Shart, right, who's Shannon
Stillwell's defense attorney, who in our show a bunch.
Speaker 9 (06:27):
Shannon Stillwell is one of the people who's accused of
killing Donovan Thomas, and the police have long suspected him
of being the shooter. He's accused of that murder and
another murder. And so Max Shart, more than maybe even
Brian Steele is, you know, has to get on the
bicycle and roll like through this whole thing. Like if
(06:48):
they prove that murder, they've got a bunch of other
stuff that everybody basically goes down because that is a
clear gang crime. So Sharp is like a constant presence
and is constantly talking about like, no, this part piece
of evidence is bad. Oh, this videotape, well, it's like this, Oh,
(07:11):
this witness was bad. Oh. The fact that there was
an ankle monitor on my guy that puts him at
the scene of one of these murders. We could discount
that these are the reasons why. And I'm still listening
to this, like they had this much evidence, like what.
Speaker 10 (07:26):
So yeah, and Christina, what did you think about the
opening statements?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
At least on the defense side, it was to an extent,
it was what I expected, right, which is that Brian
Steele Young Thugs lawyer was going to portray his client
as a really hard working, up and cooming musician out
of Cleveland Avenue and somebody who, frankly is too famous
to concern himself with anything involving like a criminal street gang.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Jeffie Williams is a Grammy Award winner.
Speaker 13 (07:57):
He is not sitting there telling people to people he
doesn't need their money.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Jeffrey's work keens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So that much I expected I guess what I didn't
expect was to learn that the thug and young Thug
is an acronym and that it stands for truly humble
under God.
Speaker 13 (08:20):
The means to Jeffrey something very personal. It was his
path he could ever make as a.
Speaker 12 (08:30):
Musical artist and help the family, himself and as many
others out of this endless cycle of hopelessness.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
He would be truly humble under God. That's what thug means.
Speaker 10 (08:53):
This really made rounds on the internet too. I mean
lots of people were kind of chimming in on social media.
Speaker 11 (08:57):
But about that face.
Speaker 9 (09:00):
Every time somebody says this truly humble under God thing,
like you just need to like this needs to be
like Bert in that gift where he's just staring at
you like he's gonna kill you, Like, uh huh no,
nobody believe I don't look people, there are people in
this world who will believe this. I don't know those people.
Please introduce me to those people.
Speaker 11 (09:21):
Listen. It was surprising because during his opening.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Same as Brian Steele, essentially says a young thug has
two artistic influences.
Speaker 13 (09:27):
And Jeffrey studied two rap artists, particularly he idolized a
gentleman named Dwayne Card.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
His performing name is Little Wayne. Jeffrey also idolized.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Cheapo one being low Wayne, which was apparent from the
moment that he started rapping essentially the other though being
less obvious, and that was Tupac. So Tupac had the
words thug life tattooed across as abdomen, but they never
meant for that to be taken literally. It was always
supposed to be a statement that stood for the hate
(10:06):
you give little infants fucks everybody. So what Brian Steele
was saying was that Young Thug took influence from that
and said that the Thug and Young Thug was going
to stand for that much more. However, I feel like
even for the biggest Young Thug fans, that was news
to them.
Speaker 9 (10:24):
Like, as I'm listening to this, I'm going like, one,
who's the audience for this statement? Because like, it doesn't
matter whether or not I believe it. Sure, I'm a cynic.
I think everybody's lying to me all the time. Like
the question is whether or not twelve jurors and four
alternates hearing that will go it's plausible, Like.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Don't I don't know, Well, I mean They're also supposed
to answer questions, you know, as they were being selected
about how aware they were even about rap music, young
Thug or whatever. So I mean, wouldn't that mean that
this would all be news to them essentially?
Speaker 9 (10:58):
Yes, I mean there are nine black on that and
not that you just make presumptions about people's musical tastes,
But there are nine black jurors, you know, in Atlanta,
Like I would expect them to have sort of a
baseline understanding, not so much about young Thug. Look, I'm
fifty years old. I've said this a lot. If it's
post Wu Tang clan, I need help. But but you
(11:21):
know it's Tupac. I mean, if you're a fifty year old,
you know what Tupac's about, like, and so this idea
that you know, he's drawing from Tupac in this specific way,
Like all of a sudden, the introduction of lyrics into
a case starts to make sense from their perspective, It's like, oh,
(11:45):
really that's what that was about. Show me, Like at
which point both the prosecution and the defense are going
to be like, Okay, well he said this and this
and this and these lyrics because he made this statement
like this is what his music's about.
Speaker 10 (12:00):
Here we go, We'll be back after the break. Well,
I will say his sister back in December of twenty
twenty two did tweet out this very thing that truly
Humble under God is what Thug was meant to imply.
(12:23):
That's where he got his name from. So there was
some precedent for that. But whether she I mean, he'd
already been arrested at that point, so whether she was
sort of laying the groundwork for this idea that they
were going to put in court as interesting. So when
I heard it, I was like, oh, I remember, I
think Dora was the sister that said it in a tweet.
I remember she had tweeted that at some point because
we were keeping tabs on everything, and so it was
(12:44):
interesting to see that pop back up in court. I
think with Brian Steele saying it, I mean, on some.
Speaker 9 (12:49):
Level I get what he's trying to do here, like
it's he wants to make this case about Young Thug's fame,
like dumb Thug is, why would Young Thug burn his
career for this stuff?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, it's about fame and also just how prevalent gang
culture is in pop music culture to the point where
it's like, can you take every signifier in every hip
hop context?
Speaker 10 (13:11):
Literally?
Speaker 11 (13:12):
I think he's trying to cast a shadow of doubt.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
There, and in that regard, I think he's doing is
the best job you could do.
Speaker 10 (13:21):
So Opening Stamas began right after Thanksgiving, so we've been
going for a little while here. We talked about some
witnesses already. Trantaviou Stevens, We'll get back to him in
a minute, but tell me about some of the earliest
witnesses we saw basically to start out with the parade
of police officers right.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
Starting with Mark Bellnap. Mark bell Napp is sort of
generally understood as like the prime gang investigator for the APD,
but also generally in the state. He sits on the
board of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association, lectures across the
state on this stuff. Is an expert witness in a
(13:56):
bunch of different trials. It would actually be weird for
them to not bring bell Nap in to start this
thing because he knows more about like broad gang culture
and gang activity and gang members, Like he can go
and talk to actual gang members and say this is real,
and they'll say yeah, that's no, that's not This guy's
a that's a fake, like that's his job, and so
(14:20):
bell naps there. These started laying out the history, like
this is what we know of Rock Crew.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Raised on Cleveland, and it was one of the earliest
of those gangs that I told you earlier called hybrid gangs.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
They were a local group, obviously raised on Cleveland. They're
saying we were all from Cleveland Avenue area. They're all
from that area. But we began seeing them and observing them.
Speaker 13 (14:43):
Picking up the identifiers and we would traditionally associate with
gangs that are associated with the bloods. They started wearing
red bandanas, They started using the number five, including in
five point stars.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
They started using their own hand sign.
Speaker 9 (14:58):
And then taking that through thirty D to yasel at
least from the police perspective, Like the thing is, this
is the police perspective, like the whole point of a
trial is for a defense attorneys going, well, that's not
actually how that.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Works, right, right, right, And we heard a lot of
this actually during the making of our show when we
talked with investigator Kimberly Underwood.
Speaker 14 (15:22):
He wasn't young thug when I met he was Jeffrey Williams.
He was a part of a hybrid game rock Crew.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I think there was some parallels there where she talked
about how initially Rock Crew we're getting in, we're you know,
stealing from ATMs and all that.
Speaker 14 (15:36):
Back when I started the investigations, we had a lot
of ATM thefts around the Cleveland Avenue neighborhood. We knew
for the fact that Rock Crew were in both, and
it's rumors that, you know, they used the proceeds from
the actual ATM thefts to get into the studio and
blow up. So it's like you said that the chrominal
(15:57):
activity starts and then they build their way.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Up, and that how that actually became the president for
what we know now as like why to sell the
purported record label.
Speaker 14 (16:07):
Because you have to put money into studios to actually
you know, become rappers.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
And then after that, there's just a bunch of different
police officers, like we're talking about beat cops from Zone
three that's South Atlanta, who had arrested this guy or
that guy or the other guy, because they're the job
of the prosecution at this point is to prove the
gang case. On top of the rico thing like and
(16:33):
to do that, you've got to prove that, why I sell,
was an illegal street gang. It's perfectly legal to belong
to a gang, a street gang, but if there if
the gang is about committing crimes, then it's illegal, like
and then you have to prove that the person is
a member of that gang. And then you have to
prove that that person committed a crime which counts under
(16:56):
the gang statute and would have been furthering the interests
of the gang. And so they've got a first show like, well,
here are all the crimes that we and big crimes
and little crimes, like everything from the murder case to
like a criminal trespass because you're on a Harvard board.
Speaker 10 (17:14):
Right, Yeah, Actually, let's talk about that one in particular,
because we talked about this I think in the podcast,
this small crime that was pegged on Young Thug early.
What do you think, Christina, Can you talk a little
bit more about that?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting to bring this incident back
up in the context of the indictment because I think
in the grainder scheme of Young Thug's career now it's
almost kind of a footnote. I think I actually did
have to jog my memory a little bit as to what.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
Actually happened there.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But the incident that we're talking about is what happened
at Perimeter Mall when a mall security guard, yeah, like
approach Young Thug who was riding on a hoverboard in
the mall when he wasn't supposed to, and then like
in the midst of all that, as they're trying to
settle things, Young Thug essentially said, I'm going to shoot
you in the face.
Speaker 9 (18:00):
It's not clear it was actually Young Thug who said that.
It was somebody in the car, right.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
But what's interesting is that even if who said that
wasn't clear at the time, because Young Thug is coming
up as a hip hop artist and getting profiled in
the likes of New York Times and GQ, it actually
kind of becomes part of his lore. At the time,
it was helping to illustrate Young Thug as like Atlanta
hip hop's new bad boy. But in the grander scheme
(18:25):
of things, of course, you know, he's been on SNL,
he sold number one albums, he has artists like under his.
Speaker 11 (18:31):
Tutelage, and so to then see.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
The mall security guard take the wit or take the
stand was really interesting because it especially for those who
have been following Young Thug's career, it's like, oh, we're
going to go that far back. We're going we're examining
the full essentially the full extent of Young Thug's career
as we know it, because this incident occurred in what
twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
And there was a particularly difficult witness to watch, right,
I mean, this is a man that suffered a stroke.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
Yeah, apparently last year, and so like they didn't show
his face by the way, like you got to be
in court to see him, and I mean the stroke
was apparent both in like how he was speaking and
what his appearance was like. And he couldn't remember much.
Like he's looking through the paperwork and he's like, I
don't actually remember signing this.
Speaker 15 (19:20):
I don't remember providing this statement at all.
Speaker 9 (19:25):
I don't remember looking at this. I don't remember. Prosecution
had to know he was going to be a hard,
hard witness, like, but they put him on anyway because
that they needed him in order to authenticate the document,
and they did it the best way they could. It
shows that they're throwing spaghetti at the wall. Whatever they've got,
(19:47):
everything they've got like because if you could admit something,
you would omit that in order to say this is
a gang these are gang things like and I, especially
with that one, You've got to start asking questions about
if I'm the juror jury, I'm asking questions about, like,
(20:08):
what are you calling gang crimes?
Speaker 10 (20:11):
Yeah. So the next witness, uh notable witness that we'll
talk about today is Trontavius Stevens.
Speaker 16 (20:17):
We brought up earlier, Are okay?
Speaker 10 (20:32):
Now he made a deal, as you mentioned, to testify
in this trial for more lenient sentence, and now is
compelled to testify by this deal. So you know, obviously
what Max Shark would say about him and has said
about these witnesses in general, is that you know, hey,
these guys made deals to save their own skin. They
can't be trusted. So Trontavia Stephen has to earn the
(20:54):
trust in order to be a good witness for the prosecution.
So tell me a bit about what you saw from
Trentavious Stephens.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
Tronevious Stephens is tap dancing as best he can. He
is ice skating on thin ice.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
He is.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
In trouble still, like only it's not just the prosecution,
it's the street. So his deal says he must testify
when called, he must testify that YL is a street gang,
that is an illegal street gang, that it committed crimes,
that these are the crimes, and that these are the members.
(21:32):
And he's said he's a founder of YSL, So he's
somebody who they say will be able to say who
was actually a LEGITIMATEYL gang member. Like, those were the
terms of his deal, and if he doesn't perform, he
goes to prison for eight years. The problem is, if
(21:53):
he does perform, the street says, you're a snitch, and
like if there are other wise guys who want to
hurt him, they can get to him. So he's sitting
there trying to fulfill the terms of his deal without
getting himself killed. And I'm just going to say, like,
I think that that is something that he is thinking
(22:14):
about every time he opens his mouth, and it's why
it takes him ten seconds to answer a question because
he's like, what is the what is the answer I
could give that that creates the least amount of risk.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Do you recall answering to the jury that the record
label was positivity and that gay was negative.
Speaker 10 (22:36):
And young the gay the.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Entity the thing that you.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Wanted the fathuly members of.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Oh I was a music?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
You were a fouding, a member of.
Speaker 9 (22:55):
So community crimes.
Speaker 15 (23:01):
While being a part of why just why.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
I'm trying to answer the question I'm asking you about.
Speaker 15 (23:29):
So I committed crimes by being a part of why
sil So, by me commedying crimes by being a part
of why, Sir, that.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
It was basic to say that why I Sale was
a game.
Speaker 11 (23:47):
Technically he fulfilled his part of the argument.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
But like you said, George, like it's on a technicality, right,
because I think when I was reading the news, I
got the impression that he just got up to the
stand and said you, you and you, you're all part
of why So. But it even took a little bit
more coaxing to get him to that point, right.
Speaker 9 (24:03):
It took him three days, like the prosecutors had three
days before he would actually say that straight up in this.
Speaker 14 (24:11):
Short room right now, are members of hyas Sale young slime.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Like the game?
Speaker 12 (24:19):
All of them?
Speaker 7 (24:20):
And about all of them?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Would you please call them my names?
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Quay right, you said the so did you call Jeffery
Williams stuff?
Speaker 9 (24:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Do you members of.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Hyat Sale called Jeffery Williams tea Slot.
Speaker 10 (24:49):
Yes, they did get him to say it though, which
is meaningful. I mean, it's it's in line with the
Gunn of stuff. And that's why everybody says that the
Gunna deal was so important, was because he had to say, yeah,
y so is a gang, which is one of the
things that you were talking about that they have to
prove here more on the way stay with us.
Speaker 9 (25:16):
I mean straight up, like Gunna is going to have
to go through this. If he gets called, it's the
same deal, Like he's got the same deal Gunn has
got like and so the whole snitching conversation around Gunna
has not ended because we're getting a bird's eye view
of what that's going to look like.
Speaker 10 (25:35):
What do you think about Trenttavious Stevens.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I think it was hard even beyond that perspective, It
seemed really hard to get a straight answer from him.
And it seemed like for all that he was being
asked to talk about, even during the cross examination, it was,
to put it most generously, it didn't seem like he
had the best of memory or like in any case,
(25:58):
or like you said, George May, he is being squarely
on purpose, right, So he's trying to answer the question,
but only from a technical standpoint and trying to answer
it and the least using the least amount of effort possible.
It was interesting because yet on the prosecution side you
have him speaking to affirming that, yes, like YSL was
a gang I'm.
Speaker 11 (26:19):
An amittic co founder Da da Da da Da.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
But on the other side of things, you know, Brian
Steele is essentially trying to establish that as a co
founder of YSL, you were also playing a part in
establishing YSL as a record label and what is your
role in that?
Speaker 11 (26:34):
What did you witness in that?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And so that's how you get to a line of
questioning where Tick is being asked by Brian Steele.
Speaker 11 (26:42):
Do you know who Serena Williams is?
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Do you know who Serena Williams is?
Speaker 7 (26:45):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Have you seen her at Wimbledon doing what's called the
crypt walk?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And did you see her do the crip walk that
one time as a victory dance? You know, just to
speak to the prevalence of gang culture and how it's
celebrated in pop culture, and that's why you have to
be up here at the ful and County Courthouse on
Murger saying like, I don't watch tennis. I watched ten Okay,
(27:12):
that's what we've come to now in this trial, George
and Tommy, Yeah.
Speaker 10 (27:16):
Which got a little bit of a giggle. You can
actually hear people chuckle a little bit at that line
in the court room.
Speaker 9 (27:23):
The whole trial is sort of skating on the edge
of the absurd. Like there are absurd moments, I mean,
and we've chronicled a lot of them over the course
of this, like our previous reporting and through the through
the podcast, but like every every day there's something that
like we live in a universe where lifestyles has to
be played in court as a as evidence of some
(27:46):
sort like like this this one.
Speaker 10 (27:50):
That is another moment that went viral and that was
without the jury, and that was without the jury, right,
why were they trying to use lifestyle in court? Christina?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
So, Brian Steele wanted to present lifestyle in full because
again what during the cross examination of Tick. Essentially, Brian
Steale wanted to establish that lifestyle was becoming a major
hit in the same time period that some of the
social media posts cited in the indictment was actually taking place,
(28:17):
and so he wanted to play the music video to
give greater context to why young Thug might be wearing.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
A rich Gang label or a rich gang hoodie, or like.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Why yeah, or like why he might be wearing the
color red in this instance when the color red is
also being worn pretty prominently in the music video.
Speaker 6 (28:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
So essentially, like prosecution and defense are arguing over whether
to play this video or not, they play it in full,
and that's that was the clip that went viral. But
in the end of it all, Judge Glenville ultimately decides that,
like listen, based on how this cross examination with Tick
is going so far, maybe he's not the best witness
(28:59):
to speak to the overall intense of what is happening
around here. Basically, Judge Glamba was like, you either got
to bring in rich Homi Kwan, who is with Rich
Gang you know at the time the lifestyle is being
made and turning into this big hit, or you got
to bring in Birdman, the architect of this whole thing.
Two of the seven Hunderd witnesses that are on the list,
but probably the two most relevant to that particular piece
(29:22):
of evidence.
Speaker 10 (29:23):
We talked about how long this is taking, Like with
Trontavia Stevens, right. So he was on for five full
days and then they took a break from Martin Luther
King week that week was off, and so now we're
back and he's on the stand again. This week, I
saw a lot of social media chatter about people being like,
is this the trial's only witness because he's taking so long.
And part of the reason for this is because you
(29:46):
have six defendants, each of the lawyers gets a chance
to cross examine the witness. I just wonder the length
of this thing. Who is this impacting more the prosecution
or the defense?
Speaker 9 (29:58):
Do you think, George, It's hard to tell, Like, in
part because I'm trying to put myself in the trying
to be trying to think of yourself as a juror
who's gone, Like you're already months into this thing, Like
your life is disrupted. And every time you see some
lengthy oh my god, they're still interviewing him. Oh my god,
(30:21):
there's there's a cross examine. Oh there's another guy cross exam.
Oh we've gone three weeks on one witness. They've got
how many witnesses, Like, on some level, you got to
wonder how many of them are like just get me
out of here.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Even a three to four minute music video felt like
ages in that context.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
They're playing lifestyle from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
They're trying to get pushing p to play like there's
some technical difficulties there. They're waiting for the video and
a buffer, and then they finally get to play it
in full, and I was like, this is my entire
life flashing before my eyes.
Speaker 10 (30:48):
You guys, I heard Glenville ask if the jury wanted
to break at one point after something, and they were
You could hear like yes, Like I mean there was,
like seriously, there were I mean, there's some exasperating and
I do one. It feels like this works against the
prosecution to me because they're the ones. They're the reason
we're all here, right, They're the reason everyone's in the
courtroom is they brought these charges against them. They have
(31:10):
the burden of proof, and so I'm when I think
of like what a juror would be thinking in that seat,
Like if I'm in that seat, I'm like, God, this
is taking so long, and I kind of you know,
who's conducting the orchestra, right?
Speaker 9 (31:22):
Yeah. One of the other things here is the likelihood
of a mistrial, And it's more than just the potential
for misconduct, Like, you got a bunch of folks who
are fifty sixty so maybe seventy years old on the jury.
Any of them get COVID and there have to be
out for a week. Either you stop the trial for
a week or you knock that juror off the trial.
(31:44):
You got twelve jurors and four alternates, which means you
can lose four. When you lose five, you're done. You
have to start over. Oh goodness, gracious, can you imagine
that's true.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
There was their homework assignment during the MLK week. They're like,
you know, make sure you're up to date on all
your vaccines and don't talk to anybody about this ever.
Speaker 11 (32:08):
Okay, we can't start over.
Speaker 10 (32:10):
Yeah, I mean, mistrial's an absolute nightmare and we saw
some close calls early in the trial because of discovery rules.
I mean, the prosecution has been burned a couple of
times for not sharing evidence properly through discovery.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
Until prosecutors start getting punished for this, either with reversals
or with sanctions, like apparently they're just going to keep
doing it. It is a thing that the Fulton County
like District Attorney's office is doing. And it's not just
this case. They will magically operate a bunch of discovery
at the latest possible moment and not when they immediately
(32:44):
have it, and it's leverage as far as they're concerned.
Speaker 11 (32:47):
You say, you've seen it in other cases too.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
It's happened to the YFN case, the sort of sister
case to this, where one of the defendants, Bloody j
they drop the charges on him after her discovery demand
by his attorney. That trial, by the way, which has
been delayed a year because of the YFN case or
why is hell case started a jury selection last week.
Speaker 10 (33:14):
So one last thing in the same vein, and then
I think we wrap up for today. But you know
this Fannie willis news. There's accusations that she's had some
sort of affair with one of the lead prosecutors on
the Trump case, Right, Nathan Wade is his name?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Is that?
Speaker 9 (33:29):
Right? That is correct?
Speaker 10 (33:31):
So we don't want to get into this sort of
details of this, obviously, but I would like to ask
both of you if this could impact this trial at all.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
It's certainly making it harder for jurors to not pay
attention to anything, because that's kind of their duties, right,
They're supposed to bury their head in the sand in
order to maintain a completely unbiased look at the landscape.
How are the hell are they supposed to do that
when Fannie Willis is a national figure in part because
the why Cell trial exists, among others, among others, of course.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
Yep, I don't. I don't want to get into funny well,
it's his personal stuff.
Speaker 10 (34:10):
I you know.
Speaker 9 (34:12):
The problem is there's money on the line, and the biggest,
the bigger than why is okay, So I'll say that,
like prosecuting Trump, probably more important. The thing is like
she's not saying no and so, and as long as
it's out there, like that's the news story. Because we
live in like the hellscape that is twenty twenty four
(34:35):
where this sort of thing is what people pay attention to.
The money is important. I care about the money. I
care about the potential that she was funneling money to
somebody who was ultimately funneling it back to her in
the form of gifts. That's a problem, and.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
It might be considered insults injury, right because I'm seeing
a new guy in tocologist and she was one of
the two thousand perspective jurors, you know that was to
be seen for the y Cel trial. And the first
thing she says about this trial more than anything else,
is like waste of taxpayer dollars. So imagine, like like
all of our other constituents, right, like, what are they
(35:20):
thinking about when they're thinking about the y Cell trial
taking place? Maybe the first thought isn't like, oh, it's
great to see you know, people being put to justice
that we'll finally get a handle of, like this this
crime wave, the gang problem. The first thought that comes
to their mind might be, what a waste of my
tax being dollars? And I don't think this news necessarily helps, No.
Speaker 9 (35:43):
Because money because money.
Speaker 10 (35:46):
Well, any final thoughts.
Speaker 9 (35:48):
You know, there's still a lot of trial here, and
we haven't gotten to the We haven't gotten to the
most important witnesses, in my opinion, the police officers who
had been investigating this case all long, Like they really
haven't testified yet, none of the big like Birdman, Rich
Homie Kwan. You know, there's a whole musical aside of
(36:11):
this because at some point, like basically the defense is
going to say music is on trial. This is what
it looks like, you know, there's there's a lot of
drama coming, you know, and I'm just I'm thinking, this
is the rest of my life now, this is what
I'm going to be doing until I die. That's my
(36:32):
last thought about it.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
All right, Well, the rest of our adult lives are covered,
and I'm at least glad to be on this ride with.
Speaker 9 (36:38):
Both of you.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
You know, in the future, we may have some guests,
some of the people that we've had on the show,
some new people maybe that'll come in and sit with
us and talk about this case. We'll be on every
other week, and if you have any questions, anything you
want to hear us talk about. I think the best
way to probably handle that is to hit up George
and Christina's Twitter handles. So can you guys just say
(37:00):
what those are?
Speaker 9 (37:01):
My handle is Neon Flag.
Speaker 11 (37:03):
And mine is Mina an Lee.
Speaker 7 (37:06):
All Right with that, That.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
Concludes the very first episode of King Slime, The Discussion.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Airloom Media.
Speaker 9 (37:27):
It's written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee, and
Tommy Andres.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyre and
Taylor Chakoi.
Speaker 9 (37:35):
The executive producer and editor is Tommy andres.
Speaker 11 (37:38):
Our theme music is by Done Deal.
Speaker 9 (37:41):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com