Second Rapper Stabbed in Atlanta Jail During Record-Long Trial
Rapper Yak Gotti, whose real name is Deamonte Kendrick, 32, was stabbed in the south annex of Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail on December 1, 2024, during a racketeering trial involving fellow rapper Young Thug—real name Jeffrey Lamar Williams, 33—and four others. Earlier in what has become Georgia’s longest trial in history, co-defendant Shannon “SB” Jackson or Stillwell, was also stabbed in the main jail on December 10, 2023.
Kendrick recovered and was back in court for jury selection the next day. He and Stillwell are the last two defendants in the case, allegedly part of a criminal street gang masquerading as a group of musicians signed to Williams’ Young Stoner Life label while they perverted the label’s YSL monogram to live a “Young Slime Life” that included multiple weapons and drug crimes.
Stillwell was hospitalized after his attack and recovered. Fellow jail detainee Willie Brown was charged with assault, but no further details were available. At his arrest, Stillwell was reportedly sacrificing a goat for a religious ceremony, but his attorneys have tried to suppress video of that, arguing it might unfairly prejudice jurors.
Williams and three other co-defendants accepted plea deals in November 2024. According to the terms of Williams’ deal, he is banned from Atlanta for 10 years and not allowed in the presence of weapons, on top of performing 100 hours of community service for 15 years; he was also banned from flashing “real or suspected” gang signs, though it was unclear how that would be enforced.
Sheriff Pat Labat blamed “dangerous overcrowding” for 10 detainee deaths in 2023 at the jail. Squalid conditions prompted the federal Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation in July 2023, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Feb. 2024, p.12.]
Sources: Atlanta News First
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