Young Thug drops new album while in jail, awaiting RICO trial

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Mystery solved.

A cryptic Instagram post several days ago from rapper Young Thug, still awaiting his day in court in a massive RICO trial in Fulton County, has now been revealed to announce a new album, entitled “Business is Business.”

On Thursday afternoon, a new Instagram post from the rapper - real name, Jeffery Williams - shows Young Thug in a courtroom. Tens of thousands of Young Thug’s fans have been speculating on the artist’s next project.

The rapper’s last album was released in 2021, and was called “Punk.”

Jury selection - which has already lasted longer than any other in Georgia history, and has been repeatedly plagued by arrests, charges and disruptions - has been halted until July 10, according to the senior staff attorney to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville, who is overseeing the RICO trial of Young Thug.

Earlier this month, a Fulton County deputy was arrested on charges she had an “inappropriate relationship” with a defendant.

Christian Eppinger was severed from the case after deputies seized his attorney’s laptop a week before. Eppinger’s attorney, Eric Johnson, said the state believes his client used the laptop to communicate with Akeiba Koren Stanley, a Fulton deputy who was arrested and charged with hindering apprehension or punishment of a criminal, violation of oath by public officer, conspiracy to commit a felony and reckless conduct.

Several of the court-appointed defense attorneys in the trial recently raised concerns about their low wages and extremely high workloads. As a result of the pressure and the trial’s high international profile, the Georgia Public Defender Council raised the attorneys’ $15,000 flat rate to a monthly increase capped $55,000. This came after one of those attorneys, Angela D’Williams, sent a subpoena to the head of the agency in order to discuss the pay.

Williams is facing eight criminal counts under a federal law that was originally enacted to fight organized crime.

The federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law was passed and signed into law in 1970 by President Richard Nixon. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, it allows prosecutors to link apparently unrelated crimes with a common objective into a prosecutable pattern of racketeering.

RICO also provides for more severe penalties and permits a defendant to be convicted and separately punished for the underlying crimes that constitute a racketeering pattern.

Georgia is one of 33 states that has its own RICO law, but in the Peach State, the alleged criminal enterprises do not have to have existed as long as the federal law.

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