Talking Trump's legal cases, Jan. 6 pardons on BBC 5 Live | YSL gang trial update
I joined my friends at the British national radio show BBC Live 5 Wednesday evening to discuss the future of President-elect Donald Trump's four criminal cases, and the possible presidential pardons for people convicted in the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection.
Several Jan. 6 defendants were charged with the actual crime of attempted insurrection, which is charged as seditious conspiracy. Nine members of the Oath Keepers militia group have been convicted of the crime, including leader Stewart Rhodes, who is serving 18 years in federal prison.
Many other people were prosecuted for other Jan. 6-related crimes. Trump said in July that he wants to pardon convicted insurrectionists “if they’re innocent.”
Speaking of pardons…
Former California lawyer and imprisoned federal felon Michael Avenatti congratulated Trump on Wednesday in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Avenatti is in federal prison for extorting Nike and stealing from the client who propelled him to fame in 2018, adult film star Stephanie “Stormy Daniels” Clifford. He’s due back in Santa Ana, California, for resentencing in his client fraud case after the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated his 14-year prison sentence last month.
Avenatti may not seem a likely candidate for a Trump pardon, but Trump has been said to have admired Avenatti’s tenacity during his 2018 media blitz, and Avenatti has publicly criticized Trump’s criminal cases, including the New York state case. They also share a common enemy in Stormy Daniels.
Young Thug celebrates jail release as YSL gang trial continues for two codefendants
Prosecutors expect to rest their case against the two remaining defendants in rapper Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams’ gang racketeering conspiracy trial this month.
Williams left jail on 15 years probation last week after pleading guilty in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta, Georgia, to gun, drug and gang charges and no contest to gang leadership and racketeering conspiracy charges.
His first public appearance was a video with his friend and fellow Atlanta rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris and Harris’ son Domani, posted early Nov. 5 on Instagram. The video led some on social media to question whether Williams’ probation allows him to associate with T.I., who has felony drug and gun convictions.
The answer is maybe, maybe not. Like a lot of legal issues, Williams’ freedom to associate with Harris is open to interpretation.
Williams’ probation conditions don’t outright prohibit him from associating with other convicted felons.
Instead, he’s ordered not to “knowingly have contact of any kind or character with any other member or associate of a criminal street gang who are not a member” of his immediate family, including his 27 codefendants in the racketeering case. Judge Paige Reese Whitaker provided an exception for rapper Sergio “Gunna” Kitchens as well as Williams’ brother Quantavious Grier, who is serving nine years in prison after his probation was revoked last year for a gun violation.
However, the judge made it easy for prosecutors to change that: Her order says, “In the event any provision of this special condition is determined to be void or enforceable, such determination shall not effect the sentence or the remainder of the special conditions which shall continue to be in force to the fullest extent permitted by law.”
Williams’ probation conditions also tell him to avoid associating with “unsavory” characters, without defining unsavory.
Atlanta-based lawyer Joshua Schiffer called probation hearings “the Wild West of criminal law.”
“The whole problem with probation revocations is that they just file a petition, and you get locked up and have to sit there until a hearing where the judge has enormous discretion to basically do whatever they want,” Schiffer told me on X. “It’s only a matter of time before he has to fight the issue.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told WSB-TV in Atlanta that the time Williams spent in jail was “not a walk in the park.” She also emphasized that he’s by no means “free” as some of his fans say, because his sentence includes a “backloaded” 20-year prison term that he’ll serve if he doesn’t complete probation.
“Hope springs eternal that he will do well because if not, he’s going to land himself in prison for another 20 years,” Willis said.
Williams’ lead lawyer, Brian Steel, spoke at Emory University School of Law this week, and Williams joined him on a video call.
“I think it’s very important to help people out of the situations they’re in the best you can,” Williams said. “I mean, what side do you want to be on? You want to put people in prison for mistakes? Because everybody makes mistakes. They’re human.”
Testimony this week has focused on the murder of Shymel Drinks, who was shot to death in his car on March 14, 2022, while stopped at an Atlanta intersection. The slaying is the basis for some of the 191 overt acts supporting the racketeering conspiracy charge against Stillwell and Kendrick.
Kendrick is not accused of being involved in Drinks’ murder, but Stillwell is: He’s charged with murder along with Miles Farley and Damekion “Lil Dee” Garlington, who are awaiting trial. Former trial defendant Quamarvious Nichols also was charged with Drinks’ murder, but prosecutors dismissed the charge in a plea deal last week that sent him to prison for seven years, with credit for time already spent in jail.
Prosecutors say Nichols was not in the vehicle from which the fatal shots were fired, so they were willing to dismiss his murder charge. But they believe Stillwell was, and they have records showing Stillwell’s girlfriend rented the car with him in Jacksonville, Florida, before Drinks was killed.
Jurors this week saw surveillance video from a gas station where the men were before the murder, and from the area around where Drinks was found dead. They also heard from Drinks’ girlfriend about the last time she saw him alive, and they heard from the Atlanta man called 911 after seeing Drinks slumped in his car with a window shattered.
Testimony continues next Tuesday. Attorneys will be in court Friday to discuss legal issues with Judge Whitaker. I’ll be streaming on YouTube. I’ll also be interviewing Nichols’ attorney Nicole Westmoreland live on YouTube on Monday at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT.
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