Third judge assigned to YSL, Young Thug RICO trial after second judge recuses herself (2024)

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A third judge has been named to oversee the YSL RICO trial involving rapper Young Thug and several co-defendants after a second judge recused herself from the case.

According to the court, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker will take over the case. She went to undergraduate school at the College of Charleston and graduated from the Duke University School of law in 1992, her biography wrote. She has been serving as a superior court judge in Fulton County since 2017.

11Alive previously reported how, in 2023, Judge Whitaker had been involved in key decisions regarding a lawsuit against the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission. Whitaker had also recused herself in 2021 from a murder case involving six deputies accused of killing a man while he was in jail custody.

In general, this news comes after a tumultuous week for Georgia's longest criminal trial ever.

First, on Monday, the case's initial judge, Ural Glanville, was removed after attorneys for Young Thug had argued that he should no longer oversee the case because of a June 10 proceeding known as an ex partemeeting that became the subject of deep contention in the trial.

The person who was subsequently tapped to take on the role was Judge Shukura Ingram.

Now, two days after she was assigned the case, Ingram filed a written order recusing herself from the case. In the order, Ingram cited her court's former assigned deputy's allegations relating to a YSL defendant, Christian Eppinger.

Eppinger's case was severed from the rest of the YSL defendants last year after it was alleged the deputy tried to sneak contraband to him in jail with the help of one of his family members.

However, Ingram said that if that deputy was called on as a witness in any future proceedings, her impartiality could be questioned.

"This may undermine the public's confidence in the impartiality of the proceedings," Judge Ingram wrote. "While the Court does not regard the aforementioned situation as creating any actual bias for or against any party to this case, the Court does view this as a matter that could cause a reasonable person to question the Court's impartiality and reasonably give rise to the appearance of impropriety should the Court remain on this case."

But no matter who is now in charge of the trial, legal experts have told 11Alive that getting familiar with a year and a half's worth of what has happened in the trial will not be easy.

And a bigger question now hangs in the balance: Will the currently paused trial even proceed?

More on the Young Thug, YSL trial

On May 9, 2022, the hip-hop world was jolted with the news that rapper Young Thug—a Grammy winner, trendsetter and Atlanta icon—had been arrested.

It's been over two years now that the artist, whose legal name is Jeffery Williams, has remained behind bars. The central charge against him is that three letters with which his name has become synonymous because of his artistic success in launching the "Young Stoner Life" label, YSL, actually signalize a violent gang: Young Slime Life.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis named Williams, among other metro Atlanta rappers and those with ties to the alleged gang, to bring charges against a total of 28 people in a sweeping 88-page indictment. The case alleges that not only is Young Thug among the gang's members, but he is also its kingpin.

"He is the one they're all afraid of," a prosecutor said at a June 2022 hearing. "He's the one that's King Slime."

A long pretrial process passed to an even longer jury selection process, and across this time, the co-defendant list dwindled with plea deals and other circ*mstances, keeping some of the individuals charged from remaining on the case.

The trial finally began in earnest in November 2023, already considered the longest in Georgia's history.

11Alive has tracked key developments in the case and highlighted moments in the courtroom. Follow along in the timeline below.