Prosecutors ask judge for delay in Young Thug, Gunna trial

ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked a judge to delay the trial of Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna.

In May, Young Thug and Gunna were both named in a sweeping gang indictment that included 26 other people alleged to be members of the Young Slime Life gang.

The 88-page indictment included a wide-ranging list of 181 acts that prosecutors say were committed starting in 2013.

Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, is accused of conspiring to associate together and with others for the common purposes of illegally obtaining money and property through a pattern of racketeering activity and conducting and participating in the enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.

Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, is accused of theft by receiving stolen property, possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and participation in criminal street gang activity.

In a court filing Thursday, Willis said that “eight defendants may be forced to trial with ‘ill-prepared appointed counsel’” because they still have not been assigned an attorney.

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The district attorney also said that there is a large amount of data that her office needs to go through in time for the trial.

“The discovery in this case includes over three terabytes of data,” Willis said in the filing. “(That) does not provide an opportunity for those defendants to have ‘counsel ... [with] a reasonable time to prepare [their] defense[s] properly.’”

To add to that, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that “lead prosecutor Don Geary left the Fulton DA’s office for a position in Gwinnett County. Geary started his new role Monday, the Gwinnett DA’s office confirmed. It’s unclear who Willis will appoint to lead the high-profile case following the veteran prosecutor’s departure.”

More motion hearings in the case are scheduled for next Thursday. Currently, the trial is scheduled for Jan. 9. Willis is asking for a new trial date of March 27.

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