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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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The judge presiding over Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sweeping RICO case against alleged Young Slime Life gang members is putting her high-profile trial at risk, legal experts say.
Drama has unfolded in Judge Ural Glanville's courtroom over the last few weeks, and he's emerged at the center of it. The judge's decision to hold a private meeting with Willis' office, a state witness, and the witness' counsel—as well as his response to the revelation of that meeting—has prompted defense attorneys in the case to seek Glanville's recusal from the YSL trial.
In a scathing motion filed Monday, attorney Brian Steel, who is representing Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug in the case, claimed Glanville had "become a member of the prosecution team" when he held a meeting that allowed Willis' team "to induce a material witness to testify."
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"The motion is a hatchet, not a scalpel," former federal prosecutor and elected state attorney Michael McAuliffe told Newsweek. "It accuses the judge of essentially acting in league with the prosecutors and being biased against the defense."
McAuliffe said what was "extraordinary" about the motion was its "tone," which didn't "event try to cloak the accusations in any manner of respectful advocacy as to the judge's conduct." He said the "nakedly aggressive approach" signals that the defense doesn't think there's anything to lose in challenging Glanville.
"It also means the strategy is to inject as much controversy, maybe even chaos, into very lengthy proceedings with the likely goal of forcing a mistrial," McAuliffe said.
The sweeping RICO indictment against Young Thug and 27 other defendants has posed challenges for prosecutors. Even though only six of the defendants are standing trial, the proceedings have been ongoing for nearly seven months and are expected to continue well into 2025.
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"This case was always going to be a beast to try," Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, told Newsweek. "It's legally complex. There's many defendants. There's more lawyers than defendants. But once the focus became about personalities and not the allegations and the evidence, all those preexisting challenges were exacerbated."
While much of the motion focused on Glanville, it also offered a stark warning for Willis. On Monday, Steel argued that his client had been deprived of his constitutional right to "ethical prosecutors," saying that the district attorney's office has "abandoned and violated" their duties and that it was "teaming up" with the judge to "gain an unlawful advantage" over the defense. He also accused the prosecutors of engaging in witness intimidation and coercion during the meeting in Glanville's chambers.
"The Brian Steel contempt circus was a bigger embarrassment for the judge than the DA's Office, but there is still plenty for Willis' office to be concerned about," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek.
Kreis agreed that while the motion was more of a reflection of Glanville's judgment than of Willis' office, "it would've been wiser for prosecutors to not have sought an ex parte meeting at all."
Pointing out the other controversies that have clouded the YSL trial, Rahmani said, "There is the perception that Fulton County is out of control."
Aside from the private meeting and the judge's decision to sentence Steel behind bars for not exposing his sources, the trial has also made headlines because one of the defendants was stabbed in jail, a witness revealed that an investigator from Willis' office asked her out on a date during the investigation and drugs were distributed in the middle of the courtroom.
"Even people who haven't been following the trial closely saw Judge Granville blow up on Steel for no good reason on social media," Rahmani said. "Of course, everyone had already heard of Willis hiring her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, as special counsel in the Trump case and the ensuing side show that resulted in his disqualification."
"Willis has botched both cases because of these self-inflicted mistakes and charging and trying too many co-defendants at once," he continued. "Those decisions have ground both proceedings to a halt."
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