Rapper Slimelife Shawty, legally known as Wunnie Lee, testified on Wednesday as a co-defendant in the ongoing RICO trial involving rapper Young Thug and the YSL street gang.
As such, it may culminate in a mistrial given that an unredacted social media post was inadvertently revealed to the jury, thereby possibly influencing their decision.
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Slimelife Shawty, who accepted a plea deal in 2022, was on the stand to identify the individuals linked to the YSL case based on social media evidence. While doing so, however, he inadvertently read something aloud the jury was not supposed to know: the phrase #FreeQua.
Judge Paige Whitaker says Slimelife Shawty's mistake was "sloppy"
While the phrase had been redacted on-screen in the courtroom, the rapper was reading from an exhibit of the evidence, Hot New Hip Hop reported. The phrase was ostensibly on full display, given that he failed to keep it hidden.
In reading the phrase out loud, Slimelife Shawty thereby revealed that Quardarious Nichols, one of the defendants, had been incarcerated.
This tidbit of information proved contentious, as it holds the potential to influence the jury's image of Nichols. The defense team didn't take long to respond, as they swiftly proposed the motion for a mistrial. Nichols' attorney, Bruce Harvey, said,
"It is painfully obvious that the state is not prepping their witnesses.”
Notably, while Judge Paige Whitaker did not pay heed to the motion, the possibility of a mistrial without prejudice still stands. This implies that while the trial can be restarted, the option to retry the case lies in the hands of the state. She said, during the trial, as seen in a clip posted on X,
"I am sorry y'all have this gigantic, ginormous, universe of evidence that, maybe if you narrowed down, you wouldn't be making these kinds of mistakes. But, I believe that to be a mistake. So, I'm gonna deny a motion for a mistrial with prejudice… would you like a mistrial without evidence?"
Following the massive mishap, the Judge decided to dismiss the jury for the day. Directly speaking to the prosecution, she said, referring to what has already become the longest-running in Georgia state history,
"What I’m trying to do is fix your sloppiness so everyone would not have wasted 12 months of their lives in this trial.”
The trial began in November 2023, and several members of the YSL Gang were indicted on charges of violating Georgia’s RICO Act. Slimelife Shawty was cuffed in 2022, alongside Thugger, Lil Duke, and other members of the gang, but in December that year, he accepted a plea deal and got out. According to reports, the trial is slated to resume on October 24.
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