Law & Crime
A witness for the prosecution in the Young Slime Life (YSL) racketeering (RICO) trial told the judge he was so high he might just fall asleep while testifying in Fulton County criminal court on Tuesday.
Adrian Bean is one of the people the state have sought to use to establish that hip-hop recording artist Jeffery Williams, better known by his stage name Young Thug, was at the scene of a drive-by shooting that took the life of Donovan Thomas Jr. on Sept. 11, 2013.
Bean, however, has not offered particularly illuminating testimony in the case so far. Late last month, he explained that his memory of the shooting and concomitant car crash was nil to nonexistent because he was frequently on drugs throughout 2013. Prosecutors have alleged Bean, Thug, and one or two others were involved in the fatal incident.
Now, the forgetful witness is likely to have his reliability — if not his basic presence in the trial and what it means — questioned again.
Man, umm,” Bean said on Tuesday — slowly leaning forward in the witness chair. “Can I get a water or something? I’m so high right now, y’all, I’m about to go to sleep on y’all now. I am.”
An attorney then asked to approach the witness. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville allowed the lawyer to bring Bean a bottle of water and then allowed the testimony to continue.
The testimony was broadly a retread of Bean’s earlier time on the stand in late February. Then, prosecutors sought to establish that in the immediate aftermath of Thomas’ death, Bean, who was arrested that day, told investigators Thug was a “gang banger” and was specifically allied with the Bloods. The state also tried to elicit testimony from its witness that he told a detective Thug “ran away” from the shooting. The end result from all of that, however, was more of a question mark than anything — with Bean saying he was more or less addicted to “molly” at the time and could not recall anything.
When earlier questioned by the defense, Bean also had a memory lapse — denying any recollection of what was said during a January 2023 meeting with Thug’s lead defense attorney, Brian Steel. That bout of forgetfulness led Steel to accuse Bean of being untruthful.
On Tuesday, Steel again sought to pose questions about that meeting to the self-proclaimed under the influence witness.
The defense claims Bean had the screws put to him by police in an effort to implicate Thug in the drive-by shooting.
Audio of the January 2023 meeting was played in court for the witness to hear where he appeared to suggest exactly that.
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