YSL Trial Delayed to January After Defendant Stabbed

Photo: Miguel Martinez/TNS via ZUMA Press

The RICO trial against six defendants in the group YSL, including Young Thug, has been delayed until January after one defendant, Shannon Stilwell, was stabbed in jail. A Georgia judge told jurors on December 11 that “given the length of time” it would take to respond to the incident, “it may be more prudent” to break for holidays now,” Atlanta’s Fox 5 reported. Stilwell was stabbed at Fulton County Jail in Georgia on December 10, leading the trial to be paused the following day. Officials told Fox 5 Stillwell’s condition was “stable.” “He is alive,” Stillwell’s lawyer, Max Schardt, told the New York Times. “But I fear that it was serious.” The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said Stillwell had been stabbed by Willie Brown, another inmate being held without bond on charges including murder, cruelty to children, and aggravated assault.

The judge presiding over the case, Urall Glanville, first said yesterday that the trial would be delayed after a “medical issue” with a defendant. Once court adjourned, Glanville filed orders allowing Schardt to visit Stillwell in the hospital and requesting Glanville be separated from other defendants “at all times.” Schardt had additionally told Pitchfork that he believed Stillwell “has a target on his back due to the false allegations in this RICO indictment.”

The YSL defendants’ trial began at the end of November after months of delays. Prosecutors are arguing the group, which Young Thug has said was a music collective, is a gang under the name Young Slime Life. Along with the RICO charge, Stillwell is facing two murder counts, including in a 2015 drive-by shooting of a rival gang member that’s central to prosecutors’ case. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.