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The rap game’s courtroom drama just took a wild turn! On Friday (February 16), police arrested Nicole Fegan, the lawyer of Tenquarius Mender, a former defendant in the YSL RICO case.
Fegan is accused of engaging in criminal street gang activity and advising a suspect to tamper with evidence. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, her charges are tied to a shooting that shook downtown Atlanta on September 27, 2022.
Following the shooting, Fegan allegedly contacted a suspect she wasn’t representing and tipped him off about active warrants. Fegan reportedly knew about the warrants after sitting through a preliminary hearing about the case.
Investigators accuse her of giving sketchy advice, including telling the shooting suspect to “dispose of his phone” as police planned to arrest him.
Per WSB-TV, Atlanta police arrested her in Gwinnett County and currently plan to transport her to Fulton County.
Whether Fegan has secured herself a lawyer or plans to represent herself remains unclear, but she’s reportedly maintaining her innocence. WSB-TV reports that a judge granted Fegan a $40,000 bond. She’s expected to be released on Friday night.
As mentioned, Fegan represents Tenquarius. Last year, the court severed him from the main, ongoing YSL RICO trial, per Rolling Stone, meaning he will be tried separately soon. At the time, prosecutors cited Fegan’s pregnancy as a conflict.
“I don’t think pregnancy should be treated as a disease or a disability,” Fegan argued.”
I think at this point, trying them separately would be expensive and potentially prejudicial because the jury selection process has already started. We’ve been on this case since May, and in May I wasn’t pregnant.”
By February 2023, however, the judge decided to grant the prosecutors’ request.
Subsequently, the count of Young Thug’s co-defendants, out of the 28 people initially charged, dropped to 11 people. The number has since decreased to just six.
Fegan’s run-in with the law is just one part in a string of allegations against YSL associates, including big names like Thugger and Gunna.
Authorities have tagged the gang with a laundry list of crimes, ranging from attempted stick-ups to murder.
And as Thug stands trial, denied bond for fear he might intimidate witnesses or hit the road, the prosecution appears to be pulling out all the stops at this point.
They’re even bringing his lyrics and social media flexing into the courtroom as evidence.
What’s unfolding could very well be Georgia’s longest trial saga, with Fegan’s drama now adding its own subplot to the case.
“The discovery turned over by the state was something like eight terabytes of data. On top of that, the state expects to call about 400 witnesses. It’s officially the longest criminal state trial in Georgia history,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sahaddi Abusaid told WABE. “It surpassed the APS cheating scandal trial which I think took eight months start to finish.”
