For the first two days of rapper Young Thug’s R.I.C.O. trial in Fulton County, Georgia, a few unusual things took place in the courtroom. Whether it was Judge Ural Glanville introducing his dog to the trial or Thug’s lawyer Brian Steele breaking down the MC’s acronyms and slogans like T.H.U.G. and “Pushin’ P,” it was made abundantly clear that this case would be like no other. And the following days further confirmed this.
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As of Tuesday morning (December 5), five days of trial have gone by, and days 3-5 included even more headline-worthy occurrences. Read more about them below.
Day 3, November 29
To begin day 3, Detective Mark Belknap was called to the stand as a witness. Belknap’s relevance to the case comes from his time served in the Atlanta Police Department, as well as being the vice president of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association. According to Belknap, Young Thug’s record label Young Stoner Life, whom the R.I.C.O. charges were brought against, is a “hybrid street gang” associated with the Raised On Cleveland Crew.
To corroborate this, Belknap presented initiation tactics, hand signs, and wardrobe signifiers of R.O.C. members. However, when asked if there was any crime involved in Thug rapping about gang activity in his songs, the detective answered: “As a generality, no.”
Later in the day, though, is when the real bizarreness happened. According to Judge Glanville, some of the jurors were accidentally filmed by media in the courtroom, and one of their identities was later revealed on social media. Though Glanville was upset about the blunder and considered the possibility of a mistrial, he instead just prohibited filming in the courtroom for the rest of day 3.
Day 4, November 30
To begin day 4 on Thursday, Glanville began by addressing the accidental filming once more. He reasserted that he would not consider a mistrial ruling and did not want to “weird out” the jurors since they could not access social media anyway and would not know they were identified.
After this, most of the day was centered around an alleged robbery in 2013. Two witnesses were called to the stand to share their memory of the situation: APD Sgt. Reginald Pettis and a woman named Mellissa Dees-Rosser.
The robbery involved a car-jacking outside of an Atlanta strip club named Pink Pony, which was where Dees-Rosser’s car was broken into. According to Pettis, who was investigating the crime, multiple men including Young Thug at the scene threw up gang signs at him. However, when cross-examined, Pettis confirmed that he did not know what the gang signs even meant, and did not include the incident in his initial investigation report.
To end the day, another APD officer named Michael Monheim was called to the stand, as he spoke about a 2013 traffic stop involving Thug, where pills and guns were found in his car. But, after this testimony, the prosecution and defense argued back and forth about whether the paraphernalia belonged to Thug or if he knew they were in his vehicle.
[RELATED: The 20 Best Young Thug Quotes]
Day 5, December 4
After a three-day weekend, everyone reconvened in the Fulton County court for day 5 of Thug’s trial on Monday. To start the day, Judge Glanville announced that he had dismissed one of the jurors. However, this was not related to the aforementioned filming, but instead due to an illness.
“I am in receipt of the [hospital] admission form,” Glanville said, according to court reporter Meghann Cuniff. “As of current, she is still in the hospital. Her anticipated release date, potentially, is this coming Wednesday. As much as I would like to wait until Wednesday, I’m gonna probably have to go ahead and excuse her due to illness.”
One of the main focal points of day 5, weirdly enough, was the sweater that Thug chose to wear to court. The brown, Amiri brand top included a depiction of a wolf on the front, which district attorney and prosecution member, Adriane Love, pointed out to emphasize how Thug is the ring leader of the Young Stoner Life-Raised On Cleveland operation. Quoting Rudyard Kipling’s novel The Second Jungle Book, she asserted that Thug was “the leader of the pack.”
Photo by Jean Baptiste Lacroix/Getty Images
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