Gunna was taken into custody Wednesday morning, two days after he was charged along with Young Thug in a sweeping indictment of dozens of alleged gang members in Atlanta.
The rapper, whose real name is Sergio Giavanni Kitchens, was booked in Fulton County jail on a charge of conspiracy to violate the Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — a state version of the federal law that’s been used to target the mafia and other large criminal enterprises.
Young Thug and others had been arrested on similar charges on Monday, but Gunna and many others were not immediately taken into custody. At a press conference on Tuesday, Fulton County authorities said it could take as much as “a few weeks” to find all of the defendants.
In an 88-page indictment unveiled Monday, prosecutors claimed the two chart-topping rappers and 26 others were members of a violent criminal street gang called Young Slime Life. The various YSL members stand accused a wide-range of crimes, including murder, carjacking, armed robbery, drug dealing, and illegal firearm possession.
In Tuesday’s press conference Fulton County DA Fani T. Willis said YSL had “done havoc in our community” and that she would be seeking the “maximum penalties” for those involved, including life in prison for some.
“It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is,” Willis said. “If you come to Fulton County, Georgia, and you commit crimes … we are going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Like others hit with the RICO charges, Gunna is accused of a number of specific “overt acts” that were made “in furtherance” of the overall criminal enterprise. For instance, prosecutors say he received a stolen gun, and that he possessed opioids and methamphetamines with intent to sell.
And like the claims against Young Thug, the accusations against Gunna included a number of references to his music, a controversial tactic that critics say is unfairly used against hip hop artists. In one song cited by prosecutors called “Fox 5,” Gunna rapped: “We got ten-hundred round choppers.” They also quote lyrics from another song called “Take It To Trial,” including the line “watch me whack that bitch, pop em like a cyst, Glock with the assist.” Releasing each song was “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy,” prosecutors claimed.
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday afternoon, attorneys for Gunna vowed to fight the allegations against a man who they said had been a long time “advocate for his community.”
“Mr. Sergio Kitchens, known as Gunna, is innocent,” his legal team at the law firm Garland Samuel & Loeb PC said in a joint statement. “The indictment falsely portrays his music as part of criminal conspiracy.”