Young Thug and YSL‘s racketeering case ended for the day with a strong possibility of a mistrial.
On Wednesday (October 23), the long-running trial had a dramatic moment when Judge Paige Reese Whitaker said she would consider a mistrial without prejudice — meaning the trial would end, but the state has the option to begin the case again.
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The defense had no immediate answer to whether they wanted to request one, and court adjourned for the day.
The issue began when a state witness, Wunnie Lee, was shown a social media post while on the witness stand, as an exhibit for him to help present to the jury. The original post contained the hashtag #FreeQua, referring, according to reports, to a jail sentence for one of Thug’s co-defendants, Marquavius Huey.
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However, the version of the post that was being shown to the jury had the hashtag redacted, because the jury is not allowed to believe that either Huey or a different “Qua” who is also a defendant, Quamarvious Nichols, have been incarcerated.
Wunnie was asked to read the IG post, and — reading from a version provided to him, not the one being shown to the jury — he read out loud the “Free Qua” hashtag.
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That led to Nichols’ attorney Nicole Westmoreland asking for a mistrial.
“We’re not going to be able to unring this bell, your honor,” she said. “The state presented to the witness, I guess, the unredacted version [of the exhibit], didn’t prep him to not comment on it, and he did.”
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Westmoreland noted that a similar thing had happened before Judge Whitaker came on board the case.
“Now the jury has repeatedly heard about Mr. Nichols being in jail, being in prison. And you cannot unring that bell. We would ask for a mistrial.”
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She went on: “It is painfully obvious that the state is not prepping their witnesses.”
Judge Whitaker criticized prosecutors for the slip-up.
“You should have presented [the witness] with a document that had that part [the hashtag] redacted,” she said. “It’s just sloppy… It should have occurred to you. ”
Check out the discussion below, via 11 Alive.
After that long discussion, Judge Whitaker, as mentioned, asked the defendants if they wanted to request a mistrial without prejudice. After a short sidebar, court was adjourned for the day without the defense teams providing an answer.
This is just the latest YSL-related legal craziness this week. On Tuesday (October 22), the Supreme Court of Georgia decided to overturn a contempt of court judgement against Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel.
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Steel had been held in contempt during Thug’s RICO trial back in June when confronted the case’s then-judge Ural Glanville about a private conversation reportedly held between Glanville, prosecutors and one of the state’s star witnesses.
