Young Thug RICO Trial Puts Trontavious Stephens in a Hard Place

Between a ROC and a Jail Cell

After a three-week break, the racketeering trial of Grammy award-winning hip-hop artist Young Thug, whose government name is Jeffery Williams, rebooted with a bang. On the second day of the new year, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office called two law enforcement officers.

The officers told the jury they received a report on July 7, 2015, from the security department at Perimeter Mall in Dekalb County, Georgia, that Young Thug had threatened to shoot the head of mall security in the face if he did not move from the front of his car so he could leave the mall.

Before this altercation, the mall was attempting to issue a no-trespass warrant to Young Thug and an unnamed man with him because the two men refused to refrain from hoverboarding in the mall.

In the three weeks of trial, this is the most damaging evidence introduced against Young Thug in efforts by the State to prove that he headed a criminal street gang that terrorized the Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta, Georgia, by the use of violence and intimidation.

The Perimeter Mall incident shed new light on the music mogul described by his attorney, Brian Steel, as a young man who escaped the poverty of the Cleveland Avenue community and reached out to help the community.

Then, the State called Trontavious Stephens to the witness stand. On the streets of East Atlanta, Stephens, known as “Tick” and “Slug,” was born on Cleveland Avenue in 1993. Stephens took the stand as a 30-year-old Black man who, other than extended stays in the Fulton County Jail, has never lived anywhere other than on Cleveland Avenue.

He dropped out of school in the tenth grade due to poor attendance and constantly getting into fights, which led to an expulsion. “Tick” never went back to school.

Later, he tried to obtain a General Education Diploma but could not pass the math portion of the test. So he put his dream of becoming a chef on hold while he walked around the Cleveland Avenue area to find out who “Tick” was, where he fits into the grand scheme of life, and the best practices for a teenage dad with a daughter. He made money betting on jump shots on the Cleveland Avenue Park basketball court and the dice’s whimsical roll.

Around 2004, when he was 11 years old, “Tick” caught his first criminal case and spent some time in the Fulton County Juvenile Detention Center. While in Juvenile Detention, “Tick” came into contact with the National Blood Gang. He noticed a group of boys his age and a little older band together, flash hand signs, and greet each other with a particular handshake that no one outside of their group understood.

During this time, “Tick” became familiar with a National Blood Gang that went by the initials SMM, which stands for Sex, Money, and Murder. Sometime around 2007 or 2008, he joined his first gang. He was 14 or 15 years old. His first gang was ROC, pronounced “Rock.” It stands for “Raised on Cleveland Avenue.” Membership in ROC was open to a person raised on Cleveland Avenue. You could not belong to ROC if you did not live on Cleveland Avenue. This group morphed into YSL, which stands for Young Slime Life.

“Tick” testified that he is a co-founder of Young Slime Life. He told the jury that Young Slime Life started as a record label, but as co-founder, he did not have any proprietary interest in the record label he co-founded because Young Thug worked hard to build the record label.

Yet he denied that Young Slime Life is a gang. On stern questioning by the prosecutor, he acknowledged that the difference between Young Slime Life, the gang, and Young Slime Life, the record label, is that the record label displays positivity, and Young Slime Life, the gang flouts negativity.

“Tick” was shown a picture of a shirtless Black man with tattoos all over the left side of his torso. “Tick” identified the man as himself. He said the word love tattooed on his left upper torso, spelled out with symbols as follows: a gun in the form of an L, a grenade in the form of an O, two knives in the form of a V, and three bullets in the form of an E.

The letters L I M E are on the right side of “Tick’s” upper body. In the front of these letters is a snake representing an S to spell the word SLIME.

Throughout much of “Ticks’” testimony, he faked not recalling information due to the years that have elapsed since the incident and the trial date. When Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love had enough of “Tick’s” memory lapses, she reminded him of his Plea Agreement to testify truthfully.

District Attorney Love asked “Tick” if he knew what a snitch was. He said he did not understand what a snitch is, but he had heard the term from the movies. He said snitching had something to do with the police. When asked to use the word snitch in a sentence, “Tick” replied: “I heard someone is a snitch.”

 On December 20, 2022, “Tick” pleaded guilty to one count of Racketeering. He faced five to ten years if he had gone to trial and was convicted. Judge Glanville allowed “Tick” to plead guilty. The State recommended a ten-year sentence, with credit for the two years he served in the Fulton County Jail pending trial, and “Tick” was allowed to serve the remainder of the eight years on probation.

It was his get-out-of-jail card, and he took it. A year later, Young Thug’s trial started, and now it is time for “Tick” to earn the right to remain free. In the snitch box, “Tick” is bobbing and weaving, but District Attorney Love manages to land an uppercut to the chin more often than “Tick” or any of the defendants in the courtroom would like.

Judge Glanville has recessed the trial for the rest of the week; when the trial reconvenes on Monday, January 8, 2024, District Attorney Love will still have “Tick” on the ropes, where he may stay for another few days.

Harold Michael Harvey, JD, is the Living Now 2020 Bronze Medal winner for his memoir Freaknik Lawyer: A Memoir on the Craft of Resistance. He is the author of a book on Negro Leagues Baseball, The Duke of 18th & Vine: Bob Kendrick Pitches Negro Leagues Baseball. He writes feature stories for Black College Nines.Com. Harvey is a member of the Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, HBCU and PRO Sports Media Association, and the Legends Committee for the National College Baseball Hall of Fame. Harvey is an engaging speaker. Contact Harvey at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com.