YSL Woody retracts previous statements indicting Young Thug: blames ‘squirrel brain’ police

Jurors in the YSL RICO trial, involving rapper Young Thug, returned to court after nearly two months.

With a new judge and updated rules, they reconvened in the same courtroom, where a familiar and hesitant witness, Kenneth Copeland, also known as Lil Woody, resumed his testimony.

During his testimony, Copeland admitted to frequently lying to the police to protect himself and his family, advising the jurors not to trust his earlier statements.

He also stated that he held rapper Young Thug responsible for crimes he claimed he did not commit.

"The police kept locking me up for whatever they could," he stated.

"And they keep bringing up thug name, so what I did to get them off me was 'Thug did this, Thug did that.'"

Within the first few minutes of his testimony on Monday, Lil Woody challenged the accuracy of his earlier statements.

During his testimony, Lil Woody remarked, "Detective Thorp. . .his brain was the size of a squirrel brain, so you can just tell him anything, and he's gonna go for it."

Prosecutors are using his 2015 police interviews to support their case, arguing that YSL, led by rapper Young Thug, is a gang involved in multiple violent crimes, rather than just a record label.

"The police told me they want a big fish. And I'm a little fish," he said.

"When they told me that, my only motive was to convince them that I was telling them the truth about this guy in my mind."

Lil Woody, who is immune from prosecution for his testimony, repeatedly told prosecutors he couldn't remember the answers to their questions and pleaded with them to stop questioning him.

"You ask me about 2015? I have got my life together. Y'all trying to put this on my conscience," he said.

"Y'all trying to put people's lives in my hands . . . I'm tired of y'all because y'all know y'all are wrong."

He admitted to accusing several co-defendants of various crimes without concrete evidence and explained that, despite appearing to defend Young Thug, his primary concern is telling the truth.

"It may seem like I'm trying to help Thug out. I'm not trying to help him out. I don't care nothing about him or what he got going on," Lil Woody stated.

"I care about the truth. The truth was I was going through a phase in my life, and I have put all the blame on him. I don't know what he did. I don't know what he got going on. But y'all got me on this stand, and I'm telling the God-honest truth."

Approximately ten minutes into Lil Woody's testimony, the defense requested a mistrial.

However, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker rejected the request and proceeded with the trial.

The judge began Monday’s proceedings by introducing herself, as the previous judge had been removed from the case.

She also instructed the jurors to ignore any testimony and evidence presented after the 3 p.m. break on Wednesday, June 12, including any earlier testimony from Lil Woody.