This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Young Thug’s trial in Atlanta descends into chaos as the judge orders the rapper’s lawyer thrown into jail; Bad Bunny’s battle with Major League Baseball players’ union gets messier; Madison Square Garden bans a Phish fan over the “first bong hit” at the Las Vegas Sphere; and much more. Young Thug ’s gang trial in Atlanta was already in uncharted territory – it’s now the longest trial in Georgia state history, with dozens of witnesses still scheduled to testify and no clear end in sight until 2025.
But on Monday (June 10), it crossed over into the realm of the truly bizarre. It started when Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel , said he had learned of an allegedly improper secret meeting between Judge Ural Glanville , state prosecutors, and a key witness. It ended with Steel being escorted into custody by a court officer.
In between, the attorney and the judge engaged in an extraordinary back-and-forth — broadcast across the internet in real-time — over illegal leaks, witness coercion, and potential jail time. “I’m going to give you five minutes. If you don’t tell me who it is, I’m going to put you in contempt,” Glanville said at one point.
“I don’t need five minutes,” Steel fired back. When the dust settled, Glanville had sentenced Steel to 20 .
