After judge's secret meeting, Young Thug's lawyer Brian Steel arrested for contempt
The Georgia-based lawyer confronted the trial judge about ex parte communication with prosecutors and a key witness in the state racketeering conspiracy trial.
A judge on Monday ordered a lawyer for rapper Young Thug to serve “no more than” 20 days in jail for refusing to say who told him about a private meeting the jurist had with prosecutors and a key witness.
Brian Steel is to report to the jail in Atlanta, Georgia, by 7 p.m. on Friday to serve the first of 10 two-day weekend stays under Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville’s order.
Steel was briefly taken into custody during an extraordinary scene streamed live online on the 88th day of testimony in the racketeering conspiracy case against the rapper, legal name Jeffery Lamar Williams, and his five co-defendants. Glanville allowed him back in the courtroom after agreeing with prosecutors that Steel should continue representing Williams in trial. But he told him he’d return to custody at the end of the day if he didn’t reveal his source.
“You can purge that contempt just by telling who it is that told you that information. That’s all I need to know,” Glanville said.
Steel said revealing his source would violate his ethical duty of confidentiality to his client. Glanville said he’d give him five minutes to re-consider, and Steel replied, “I don’t need five minutes.”
Glanville formally held Steel in “summary criminal contempt” about 7:30 p.m. eastern time after hearing from his attorneys, Ashleigh Merchant and Alex Susor, but didn’t jail him on the spot and instead imposed the 10 weekend sentence. Steel asked if he could “be with Mr. Williams and we work on our case all weekend for all those weekends.”
“Otherwise, I can’t prepare. I speak with Mr. Williams all the time,” Steel said.
Glanville said he’ll talk with the sheriff “and we may be able to make that work.”
Steel is appealing Glanville’s order and seeking bond. His wife and law partner, Colette Resnick Steel, filed a notice of appeal Monday afternoon, along with a motion for bond.
Merchant said she and Susor were among the “20 to 25” criminal defense attorneys who went to courthouse in downtown Atlanta after learning of Steel’s arrest.
Merchant is the current president of the Georgia Association Criminal Defense Lawyers and the attorney who wrote the recusal motion against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in the racketeering conspiracy case against Donald Trump and associates. She told Glanville she and Susor are representing Steel as a “strike force” from the defense association.
“There’s quite a few other lawyers who want to be present in the court” Merchant said.
She asked Glanville to clarify if he was holding Steel in criminal contempt or civil contempt: Criminal contempt is punishment while civil contempt is a coercive measure.
“Your desire for him to answer your question does not mean that you have the power to hold him in contempt,” Merchant said.
“So you can come into court, Ms. Merchant, and not answer a question of the court and not be held in contempt?” Glanville asked.
“If it’s a question the court’s not permitted to ask, then yes,” Merchant said.
“Well, this is a question the court is permitted to ask,” Glanville asked.
Merchant said Glanville had a duty to inform Steel of ex parte communications with prosecutors, and he shouldn’t have had to learn of it from someone else. She also said Steel has a right to call witness through due process, and she asked Glanville to refer the issue to another judge. He declined, and he said Steel wasn’t due more consideration.
“Criminal contempt is different. It’s on the spot. He’s gotten the due process he’s going to get,” Glanville said.
The judge called a “5-minute recess” to consider criminal or civl contempt, then returned an hour later, declared Steel to be in criminal contempt and sentenced him to 10 weekends in jail.
Around the same time, Glanville issued an order freeing Kenneth “Woody” Copeland, the prosecution witness whose defiant Fifth Amendment plea on Friday led to the judge’s private meeting on Monday.
Copeland is a key witness in the trial, which began with jury selection in January 2023 and could go into 2026 at the rate testimony is going. Williams, one of the biggest stars in hip-hop music, has been in jail without bail since May 2022 as prosecutors allege he led a decade-long organized crime spree through his Young Slime Life gang.
The indictment has 65 charges, including two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder, and the racketeering conspiracy charge is supported by 191 overt acts that range from murder to lyrics from Williams’ songs.
Unlike YSL associates who testified like Walter Murphy and Trontavious Stephens, Copeland was not charged in the racketeering indictment and did not enter a plea deal that requires his cooperation in trial. But Love touted him as a prosecution witness in her opening statement, and Steel told jurors in his opening that Copeland is the one who fired the shots that killed Donovan Thomas in 2015.
Thomas’ murder is a big part of the case against Williams and his trial co-defendants, Rodalius Ryan, Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Marquiavius Huey, Shannon Stillwell and Quamarvious Nichols: He was a rival gang leader who also was involved in the rap music business, and prosecutors say Williams wanted him dead after Thomas became concerned that Bryan “Birdman” Williams was trying to get rapper Rich Homie Quan to leave Thomas’ label.
Quan, legal name Dequantes Lamar, is expected to testify in the coming weeks.
Copeland was initially charged with Thomas’ murder, but the case was dismissed. A sentencing memo in a federal gun case from 2018 implies he took a machine gun in a pillow case into a recreation center as an act of self defense.
“As this court is aware, there were approximately 14 attempts on the lives of Mr. Copeland and/or his family members leading up to his arrest in this case,” according to the memo from Oct. 17, 2018. “It is these attempts, and his discussions with law enforcement surrounding these attempts, that led him to the decision to possess the firearm at issue.”
Copeland returned to federal custody on a probation violation in 2020, then was transported to state custody, but he was free when he arrived at the courthouse Friday.
The day began with his lawyer, Jonathan Melnick, telling Glanville that Copeland planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Prosecutors offered Copeland immunity, so Glanville put him on the stand outside the jury and told him he can’t be prosecuted for his testimony and thus can’t incriminate himself.
The judge warned Copeland he’d “probably” go to jail if he didn’t testify, and he quickly ordered him taken into custody after Copeland answered, “I plead the Fifth,” when Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Simone Hylton asked, “When you said you’re an adult, what number in years are you?”’
“Ladies and gentlemen, can I get you to step outside to your headquarters?” Glanville said.
After the jury left, the judge told Copeland, “Mr. Copeland given the fact that you’ve invoked your Fifth Amendment privilege but the state has already given you immunity … this court holds you in willful contempt, and we’ll see you on Monday. And we’ll see if we can get some more testimony at that point in time.”
“Take him into custody,” he told the bailiff.
Melnick said Copeland planned to invoke again on Monday, and Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love questioned whether Melnick truly was serving his client’s interests, or if he was instead conspiring with the trial defense attorneys to block Copeland’s testimony. She described Melnick giving the defense attorneys “a look as if, ‘I tried,’” after Melnick “attempted to assert” Copeland’s Fifth Amendment right for him.
“What we are seeing, we believe, is tampering with witnesses,” Love said on Friday. “I don’t know if Copeland’s interests is being represented when that interest may not be in alignment with the people that Mr Melnick is in alignment with.”
She said Copeland was “nothing but cordial” and “nothing but communicative” and wanted to speak to prosecutors on Friday, but Melnick kept “going back in there.” She also said Melnick told Copeland prosecutors “are going to hammer him.”
“It’s causes us to call into question whose interests he’s representing,” Love said. “It would appear to me that Mr. Copeland’s best interests would be best served by not being inside the Fulton County Jail. But that’s just my opinion.”
Melnick said he was offended by the accusation and plans to report Love to the Georgia State Bar for contacting Copeland when she knows he has a lawyer.
“I can ensure you the decision to invoke the Fifth came completely from Kenneth Copeland. I owe nothing to anybody over here,” Melnick said. “I — candidly, no offense — don’t care what happens with their cases. I only care about what happens to Kenneth Copeland.”
At the same time, defense attorneys argued prosecutors knew Copeland planned to plead the Fifth but put him on the stand anyway to ensure he’d do so in front of the jury. Steel wanted to question Fulton County District Attorney’s Office employees under oath, but Glanville said no.
The judge also rejected mistrial requests because he said prosecutors had given Copeland immunity to ensure his testimony, and Copeland had said before the jury was brought in that he would testify.
Melnick said attorney Kayla Bumpus would appear with Copeland on Monday instead of him because he had “nonrefundable plane tickets.”
Judge Glanville scheduled trial to begin at 9 a.m., but it didn’t begin until about 11:30 a.m. No one mentioned the late start until Steel approached the lectern during a break in Copeland’s testimony and said he’d learned of a meeting Glanville had in chambers with prosecutors, Copeland and Bumpus.
“None of the defense team, to my knowledge, was aware that this was going in,” Steel said.
Steel said he was told Copeland said he intended to pleaded the Fifth Amendment, but Love “made representations that Jon Melnick supposedly spoke with some attorneys for the accused” and told Love in an email “f you” when she said he wasn’t representing Copeland.
“Mr. Steel, can I interrupt you just for a second? I’m kinda disturbed because that’s ex parte. All that was an ex parte conversation,” the judge said.
“Well, I’m disturbed, too,” Steel said.
Glanville implied Copeland’s lawyer is the one who told Steel, saying said he suspects who told Steel about the meeting, and if he’s correct, that person violated attorney-client privilege.
The judge demanded Steel explain how he learned about the meeting.
“I’m not answering that question,” Steel said.
Steel said he was told Copeland said in the meeting that he would not testify and
”he’ll sit for two years.” Glanville replied, “I can hold you until the end of this trial” and a prosecutor said it could be for all 26 remaining defendants’ trials, not just the six currently on trial.
“What I want to know is, ‘Why was I not there?’” Steel said.
The judge defended the meeting, which he said was on-the-record through a court reporter’s transcript that can be reviewed by the appellate court, but Steel said the meeting appears to be witness intimidation and coercion.
Glanville told him he’d give him five minute to re-consider his decision not to disclose his source, but Steel replied, “I don’t need it.”
As Glanville left the bench, Steel said he heard Copeland “made statements that he admitted to killing Donovan Thomas.”
“Don’t take my notes. No, no, no,” Steel said as the camera cut away.
I discussed Steel’s arrest live on LiveNOW from Fox on Monday.
I’ll also be live on the CBS Chicago online stream Tuesday at 6 a.m. Pacific time to discuss, and I’ll be streaming the trial on YouTube like always.
I spoke live with Doug Weinstein, attorney for Williams’ co-defendant Deamonte Kendrick, Monday evening.
I’ve been having fun keeping up on everything the last few days. I’ve gained nearly 15,000 followers on TikTok in the last two days. Check out my page here. Someone ran up to me in downtown Los Angeles the other day just to tell me how much they enjoy my Young Thug trial videos on TikTok, so I’ve got that going for me.
Last but not least, Young Thug’s “Oh Okay” bar for Steel.
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