YFN Lucci and Young Thug
turned Atlanta into a warzone during their deadly beef,
and now both sides are facing decades in prison after getting hit with RICO charges.
A lot has gone down since everyone got locked up,
so today we’re breaking down everything going on behind the scenes.
Let’s get right to it.
Last year, YFN Lucci got booked on a murder charge
after allegedly sliding into opp's hood and getting his own homie killed.
The cops think he was just the driver,
but they still hit him with charges for murder, assault, and gang activity.
Then a few months later he suffered another loss
when he and his crew got hit with a massive RICO indictment.
The YFN collective going down shocked Atlanta,
but then the situation got even crazier
when Thug, Gunna, and their YSL crew also caught a RICO case.
After Thug and Gunna got booked earlier this year,
fans were hoping they’d at least be able to bond out while they fight the case.
But the judge has already denied Thug bail three times,
and he claims that if he lets Thug out it
could lead to more people getting killed.
The two major concerns this court has is,
um,
danger to persons,
and threats to intimidate other witnesses and obstruct the administration of justice
for those reasons in the aggregate,
I'm going to deny bond at this time.
Thug’s lawyer Brian Steel told the judge
that they would set up an “incredibly expensive” house arrest plan
where they would monitor all of Thug’s communication
and have dozens of off-duty cops watching him.
Steel was trying to get a set-up
like Youngboy had in Utah while he was fighting his fed case,
According to prosecutors,
the state’s witnesses are already being threatened with “serious violence and death.”
And they’re afraid that Thug will kill them and their families
if he finds out who they are.
They also brought up an alleged text
that Thug sent to some YSL members in 2015 that said
“Anybody goes into a courtroom
and tells the god honest truth they’ll be f****** killed.”
The group chat that,
that, from 2015 starting,
"Anybody goes into a courtroom and tells the god honest truth they’ll be f****** killed.".
Pardon me for the language.
And this threat is still being talked about.
The case is looking tough for Thug to beat,
but his legal team just made headlines by trying to score a huge win.
One of the biggest pieces of evidence against Thug
is that he allegedly rented the car used in the drive-by
on Lucci’s homie Big Nut back in 2015.
But now his lawyers say the state had no right to get his name from the rental agency
because he wasn’t under indictment when they got the evidence.
If they can get that evidence thrown out,
Thug’s chances of beating the case will go way up.
Right now it’s too early to tell what will happen,
but stay tuned for updates on that.
Gunna has been denied bond three times too.
Prosecutors told the judge
he was also going to intimidate witnesses if they let him out,
but Gunna’s legal team just filed a fourth motion for bond and said
that the state “has failed” to give any proof that he would do anything to witnesses.
Even though there’s no evidence against him,
the judge decided to keep him locked up anyway.
Thug and Gunna are both being kept in total lockdown
like they’re convicted serial killers.
Brian Steel said that Thug’s conditions are “inhumane”
and that he’s being kept in a room with no windows.
All he has is a bed and toilet,
plus an overhead light that stays on 24/7.
Gunna’s situation ain't no any better.
He wrote a message to fans on IG that said
“22 & 2, just a bed & a shower,
no windows just walls. Can’t see or talk to anyone.”
Living in solitary confinement when you haven’t even been convicted
already makes a bad situation worse,
and now an 18-year-old named Quartavius Mender
is facing 23 counts of terroristic threats
after he threatened to kill the Fulton County Sheriff and his wife if they didn’t let Thug out.
The Sheriff said that after they booked Quartavius
even more threats have been coming in.
To date we are continuing to receive threats.
Have as many as 4 or 5 more today.
That are all social media based.
It’s not clear if he’s actually associated with YSL,
but he damn near threw his life away over a few social media posts.
The YSL crew took another hit in October
when Jayden Myrick, AKA SetTrip or JayMan,
was convicted of robbery and murder.
JayMan is caught up in the RICO too,
but his conviction comes from a separate case
where he allegedly robbed and killed a dude back in 2018.
On July 7th, 2018,
a man named Christian Broder and three other people
were waiting for their Uber outside of a wedding venue.
Jayman and his homie saw them
and decided to hit an easy lick,
so they walked up and demanded their phones, wallets,
and everything else at gunpoint.
Broder and the others handed everything over,
but then Broder followed Jayman down the street and asked for his license back.
And that’s when Jayman upped his burner and shot him in the stomach.
Broder was just a married man with kids attending a wedding,
but he was tragically killed over nothing.
According to Jayman,
he was recruited by adult gang members when he was just nine years old.
He was arrested for robbery at 14 and was sentenced to 15 years,
but the judge let him out because they thought sending him to prison
would lead him down the wrong path as a career criminal.
But just a few months after the judge decided to give Jayman another chance,
Christian Broder was dead.
Now Jayman is serving life without parole,
plus three consecutive life sentences and another five years -
and that’s not even counting what he’ll get if he’s convicted in the RICO case.
Plus, there’s a good chance that any evidence
the prosecutors used against him in the murder trial
could be brought into the RICO case too.
Jayman told the court that he don't just rep YSL
and he’s also affiliated with Nine Trey and Lil Baby’s 4PF crew.
Rumors have already been flying that 4PF could be the next crew
that gets hit with a RICO,
and Jayman’s testimony
could end up sending a lot of dudes to prison.
Even if nobody else with YSL or 4PF was involved with the murder,
the prosecutors could try and prove that Jayman killed Broder
“in furtherance” of the gangs and use that to bring everyone down.
On top of that,
Jayman is also allegedly one of the dudes
who stabbed YFN Lucci in jail.
Back in February Lucci claimed
there was a bag on his head and that someone shanked him.
Jayman was allegedly involved,
and two other YSL affiliates named Big Bhris and Antonio Sumlin
allegedly asked Thug for permission to kill Lucci in jail.
Lucci was originally let out on bond back in 2021,
but he violated it and got locked up again.
His lawyer tried to get him out after he got stabbed,
but right now Lucci is still sitting behind bars.
And to make it even worse, his girlfriend Regina Carter
just broke up with him.
Back in May,
Wack100 accused Lucci of snitching on Thug to get a lighter sentence.
According to him,
since Lucci wasn’t named in the YSL RICO as a defendant,
he’s working with the cops against them.
Lucci’s lawyer says he hasn’t even been offered a plea deal,
and that they’re going to trial to prove his innocence.
Lucci isn’t the only dude being accused of snitching though.
Back in June, rumors started flying that Thug’s own homie Yak Gotti
was working with the police.
It started when paperwork came out
showing that Gotti told the cops in 2018
that he gave a rifle to a YSL affiliate named Lil Duke.
Gotti pleaded guilty to the weapon charges back then,
and he hopped on social media to squash the snitching rumors.
He wrote “2015 my brudda never did a day in jail
because I claimed my s***. I did 4 years fed with no tears.”
Gotti was also denied bond in the RICO case
after he was caught using an illegal cell phone in jail.
I do believe that Mr.,
Kendrick is a threat to witnesses and likely to commit other crime and a risk of flight.
For those reasons, I'm going to deny bond at this point in time.
According to prosecutors, Gotti made calls to the outside
and was telling people to get rid of a bunch of burner phones,
but the cops got to them before they could be destroyed.
Then in October,
Gotti’s mom told Rolling Stone
that someone tried to stab him in jail.
She said “My son doesn’t deserve to be attacked in jail.
No one does.”
Gotti got into a fight with the dude who allegedly tried to stab him,
and his mom said “he beat that boy’s ass.”
Gotti and Duke
are allegedly a big part of why YSL and YFN are beefing in the first place.
The situation started going downhill back in 2015 after Lucci’s homie Donovan Thomas
AKA “Big Nut” was shot and killed.
For years nobody knew who was behind the hit,
but now five YSL members have been charged with the murder -
and Thug is accused of renting the car they used in the drive-by.
Big Nut’s murder set off a huge crime wave in Atlanta,
and the cops say his death caused four more murders
and over thirty other crimes.
Lucci and Thug were cool back in the day
and had a lot of the same homies in the industry like Rich Homie Quan,
but Big Nut’s death sparked the war
that led to both sides getting hit with massive charges.
Prosecutors using Thug,
Gunna, and Lucci’s lyrics against them has caused a lot of controversy.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened though.
Boosie, Bobby Shmurda, Drakeo the Ruler,
and 6ix9ine’s lyrics have all been used against them,
but now artists are fighting back to protect their free speech.
Jay Z and other big names supported a bill in New York
called Rap Music on Trial,
which would limit lyrics used in the courtroom -
but the Fulton County DA obviously don't care about what’s going on in New York.
She said “I think
if you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m going to use it.”
Prosecutors have listed a lot of Thug’s lyrics in the case,
and in June they brought up his track Bad Boy with Juice WRLD
and accused him of shooting at YFN Lucci’s mom.
Back in 2016, Lucci’s mom’s house got shot up twice in one week.
The first time Lucci was out of town and nobody got hit,
but a week later someone drove by and let off shots again.
Lucci’s mom and her friend both hit in the leg
but weren’t seriously injured,
and now Thug’s getting tied to it through his lyrics.
On Bad Boy, Thug said
“I shot at his mommy, now he no longer mention me
You say you want smoke and I’ve been comin’ down the chimney
You got barbecue your bitches, I’m so fried and they crispy
I had on Margielas when I shot at the c***
Act like you want war and they gon’ smoke you like a blunt.”
If the prosecutors don’t have any evidence against him besides the lyrics,
there’s probably no way they’ll get a conviction
for shooting Lucci’s mom -
but it’s just one more thing that Thug and his team have to deal with.
Back in June,
Thug had a prerecorded message play at Hot 97’s Summer Jam.
He asked fans to support the Protect Black Art petition,
which asks federal and state lawmakers to limit the use of lyrics in court.
Unfortunately the YSL case is set to go to trial in January 2023,
so it’s unlikely they’ll be able to get anything done about the lyrics before then.
Thug, Lucci, and everyone else
is facing serious time -
and RICO charges are almost impossible to beat.
But with cases like this, anything can happen.
You never know when a new piece of evidence will break,
so tap in for updates while the story develops.