Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Defendant in YSL gang and racketeering trial stabbed as he awaits jury verdict
ATLANTA | One of two men who was indicted along with rapper Young Thug and is awaiting a jury verdict was stabbed in jail but appeared in court Monday.
Attorney Doug Weinstein confirmed that his client, Deamonte Kendrick, who raps as Yak Gotti, was injured Sunday. Jurors returned Monday and are deliberating whether to convict Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell on gang, murder, drug and gun charges.
Kendrick returned to court with four or five staples in his head, Weinstein said during a press conference outside the Fulton County Courthouse, but “he’s doing really well.”
“It’s a shame that anyone that’s held in our jails have to go through that,” Weinstein said.
Natalie Ammons, Fulton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said in an email that Kendrick and another detainee got in a fight at the jail’s south annex in Union City. Kendrick was treated for “minor injuries from a sharp object,” she wrote. An investigation into the fight is underway, she said.
Weinstein complained it was difficult for him to get answers from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office about what happened, but he thinks Kendrick was stabbed with “some type of an improvised shank.”
Kendrick is hardly thinking about the stabbing, Weinstein said. Instead, he’s preoccupied with the impending verdict as jurors continue to deliberate a year after opening statements began.
“Deamonte does not want to be in jail, and this incident does not make things any better,” Weinstein said. “But he’s there. He knows, or at least he hopes and is confident, that he’s going to be out soon.”
Kendrick’s co-defendant, Shannon Stillwell, was stabbed at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta last year, which put the long-running trial on pause.
Kendrick and Stillwell were among 28 people indicted along with Young Thug in May 2022 on charges including conspiring to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Jury selection for the trial of six of those defendants began nearly two years ago.
Four of the defendants, including Young Thug, pleaded guilty in October. The rapper, whose given name is Jeffery Williams, was freed on probation. Stillwell and Kendrick rejected plea deals after more than a week of negotiations, and their lawyers chose not to present evidence or witnesses.
The jury started deliberating last Tuesday afternoon and was dismissed at 5 p.m. Jurors deliberated for about six hours Wednesday before breaking for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Stephen King’s Maine radio stations will go silent for good on New Year’s Eve
BANGOR, Maine | Stephen King’s raucous rock ‘n’ roll radio station is going silent at year’s end.
The renowned author and lifelong rocker who used to perform with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock band that featured literary icons, said Monday that at age 77, it’s time to say good-bye to three Bangor, Maine, stations that have been bleeding money. King kept the stations afloat for decades, and he said he and his wife, Tabitha, are proud to have kept them going for so long.
“While radio across the country has been overtaken by giant corporate broadcasting groups, I’ve loved being a local, independent owner all these years,” King said in a statement. “I’ve loved the people who’ve gone to these stations every day and entertained folks, kept the equipment running, and given local advertisers a way to connect with their customers.”
King’s foray into radio began at age 36 with his 1983 purchase of a radio station that was rebranded WZON in deference to his book, “The Dead Zone.” That station went through a few permutations before closing, and then being reacquired by King in 1990.
The ZONE Corporation’s current lineup consists of WKIT-FM, which bills itself as “Stephen King’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio Station,” along with WZON-AM Retro Radio and an adult alternative station, WZLO-FM. They’ll go off the air on Dec. 31.
Ken Wood, the stations’ general manager, said he’s sad that the era is ending but happy that it happened. “Independent, locally owned radio stations used to be the norm. There are only a few left in Maine, and we’re lucky we had these three as long as we did,” he said.
BBC under scrutiny as ‘MasterChef’ host Wallace apologizes over misconduct allegations
LONDON | The British government’s culture secretary has held talks with the BBC as the broadcaster comes under growing scrutiny after one of its TV hosts drew an angry backlash for dismissing sexual misconduct allegations against him.
Gregg Wallace, a long-time co-presenter on the popular cooking contest show “MasterChef,” is facing allegations from multiple women that he made inappropriate sexual comments and behaved inappropriately on set over 17 years.
Wallace, 60, said last week he was stepping away from the show while an investigation was launched into his alleged behavior. But his case received further attention Sunday, when he said in a social media post that the complaints came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age.”
His comments angered some of the women who made complaints against him. A spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office described Wallace’s remarks as “completely inappropriate and misogynistic.”
The spokesperson, Dave Pares, said Monday that Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was seeking assurances from the BBC that the publicly funded broadcaster handled such complaints about workplace culture properly.
Wallace apologized for his comments on Instagram on Monday, saying he needs to “take some time out.”
The BBC has faced questions on how it handles sexual misconduct allegations and how Wallace had continued to front some of its most popular shows for so long despite the complaints.
Television presenter Aggie MacKenzie, who competed on “Celebrity MasterChef” in 2011, told ITV on Monday that Wallace made “endless smutty jokes” and alleged that “he’s been allowed to carry on in his own sweet way for many, many years.”
She said his comments about his accusers illustrate “how he just has no insight or understanding of how he behaves. He just doesn’t get it.”
Others have alleged that Wallace undressed in front of women working on his shows, made comments about his sex life or made women uncomfortable with sexualized jokes during filming.
The BBC reported that 13 people who worked with Wallace over a range of shows have complained about inappropriate sexual comments.
It reported that Wallace was warned by his employers after a complaint in 2018, and an internal investigation at the time found his behavior was “unacceptable and unprofessional.”
Wallace’s lawyers have denied that he “engages in behavior of a sexually harassing nature.”
The BBC, which has said it has “robust processes” to deal with the issue, declined to comment on Wallace’s case because of the ongoing investigation by “MasterChef”’s production company.
—From AP reports
