Long-running YSL case will end without a single murder conviction

Shaddi Abusaid, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Jun 4, 2025

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ATLANTA — After three years, 28 defendants and countless days in court, the long-running “Young Slime Life” gang and racketeering case will wrap up without a single murder conviction.

For the second time in as many weeks, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office agreed to drop a murder charge against an alleged YSL member in exchange for their guilty plea in the high-profile case.

Several Atlanta attorneys said Tuesday that was par for the course, and it was clear Willis’ office tried to dispose of the remaining defendants as quickly as possible after last year’s trial fell apart.

“I’m certainly not surprised,” said Keith Adams, who represented Atlanta rapper Young Thug, the Grammy-winning superstar at the center of the state’s case.

“It was obvious they did not have the evidence to prove that these individuals committed a murder,” Adams said. “Perhaps if they had charged aggravated assault from the beginning we wouldn’t have spent 2½-plus years wasting taxpayer money and bastardizing the justice system.”

A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment.

Demise McMullen, the final defendant facing a murder charge, pleaded guilty Monday to a reduced count of aggravated assault, court records show.

He was one of five people charged in the 2015 drive-by shooting of Donovan Thomas outside an Atlanta barbershop. The death of Thomas, who authorities said was a ranking member of a rival gang, allegedly sparked a yearslong feud that led to widespread violence across Atlanta, prosecutors argued during the longest criminal trial in state history.

Authorities alleged one of the cars used in that drive-by was rented by Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams.

Willis shocked the hip-hop world in the spring of 2022 by indicting Williams, who prosecutors said was the co-founder and leader of YSL. The Atlanta native pleaded guilty on Halloween night to gang, gun and drug charges and was sentenced to time served and 15 years probation.

McMullen entered an Alford plea to one count of aggravated assault and one count of conspiring to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sentenced him to 40 years, with the first 20 to be served concurrently with time he’s already serving behind bars and the second two decades to be suspended, court records show.

Andrew Fleischman, an appellate attorney who has been a vocal critic of Willis and her use of the state’s RICO statute, said it clearly isn’t always the best strategy.

“These trials are very complicated, and they take forever,” he said. “RICO is a way you salvage a weak case; that’s the idea. In the end, it doesn’t make your case any stronger.”

The goal of the YSL trial wasn’t to get justice or make the community safer, it was simply to bring a high-profile case, Fleischman said in his opinion. He pointed to all the defendants who received probation in exchange for their pleas.

“There are plenty of people who can be prosecuted with overwhelming evidence, so I don’t know why you have to bring these weak cases in these expensive ways,” he said.

Of the other four men initially charged inThomas’ death, two were acquitted at trial and two others had their charges dropped late last year.

McMullen’s plea leaves just one defendant of the 28 people originally indicted in the case. Christian Eppinger is accused of shooting and critically wounding an Atlanta police officer in February 2022 while he was already on probation.

Body camera footage of the officer’s shooting was played in court during last year’s trial, though Eppinger had already been severed from that case after it was revealed he was having a romantic relationship with a courthouse deputy.

Attorney Suri Chadha Jimenez, who previously represented one of the defendants, called Fulton’s sprawling gang prosecution a waste of time and money.

“They didn’t take an honest look at their case. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what you allege. It matters what you can prove,” Chadha Jimenez said. “And if you don’t have the evidence it’s just a waste of resources.”