Adrian Bean ended up in prison in connection with an armed robbery, a shooting, and a car chase with police back in September 2013. What happened more than a decade ago would be old news in just about any other place except the Fulton County Superior Court in downtown Atlanta, where prosecutors in the YSL trial are trying to revisit the episode in an attempt to convict rapper Young Thug on state RICO charges.
The most extended criminal trial in Georgia history, in recess since March 4, was supposed to have resumed Wednesday with Bean back on the witness stand but was canceled without explanation. Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, has been in custody since May 2022. Jury selection lasted ten months alone. The trial has been an exercise in fits and stops since, with only a fraction of the 400-something people on the witness list taking the stand.
This brings the proceedings back to Bean, with whom the prosecution and defense have taken their time trying to elicit favorable responses about an armed robbery in an apartment complex on Sept. 11, 2013, which led to a car crash at a southwest Atlanta laundromat. What does Williams have to do with that incident? And what does it have to do with the crimes Williams is accused of — racketeering conspiracy and participation in criminal street gang activity, as well as drug and gun charges?
Why Bean is important in YSL trial
Prosecutors are trying to establish that Williams was present for the episode that got Bean arrested in the hopes of linking him to gang activity, which is the crux of their case against the Grammy-winning rapper — that YSL is more than a hip-hop record label but actually a front affiliated with the national Bloods gang. Police didn’t charge Williams at the time. That, prosecutors say, is because while Bean and DK (real name: Walter Murphy) were arrested, Williams and at least one other alleged gang member got away before police showed up. Nevertheless, the prosecution made it part of its current indictment.
The problem is that neither side could get Bean to testify favorably; his testimony has been peppered liberally with variations of “I don’t remember” and “I can’t recall.” He blames the party drug Molly, otherwise known as MDMA, one of the main ingredients in Ecstasy, for wiping out his memories.
“I suffered from Molly; I don’t know if y’all are familiar with that,” said Bean, who was released from prison in 2017. “I don’t know if anybody in the courtroom is familiar with that, but I took a lot of drugs back in the day because a lot of things went wrong with me and my family. … Since I straightened my life out after coming home from prison, everything had just been wiped blank. I don’t remember nothing that went on back then, nothing that had anything going on with anybody else.”
Bean’s drug-induced amnesia might be bad for the defense because, despite his inability to recall facts from a decade ago, prosecutors were able to get into the record transcripts of what he told detectives back in 2013. Brian Steel, Williams’ attorney, told the court that in January 2023, the reluctant witness gave the lawyer permission to record Bean, saying that Williams was not involved. When Bean stood his ground 14 months later, insisting he had no recollection of the conversation, Steel accused him of lying to the jury.
But the trial seems a long way from being over. Given its glacial pace, which has had one defense attorney trying to beg off because of how long it has taken and how lowly she says she’s been compensated, Steel has speculated that the trial might last until February 2025.
