Fulton County Sheriff officers block off a street in front of the Fulton County Courthouse on August 14, 2023. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.
Kanye West’s former publicist, Trevian C. Kutti, has been indicted along with Donald Trump and 17 others for allegedly violating Georgia’s Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. According to the 98-page indictment (available here via The New York Times), the defendants “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the [2020 U.S. presidential] election in favor of Trump,” a conspiracy that “contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the state of Georgia, and in other states.”
Along with the RICO charge that applies to all 19 defendants in the new case, Kutti is indicted with two more of the 41 counts with which Trump and his alleged co-conspirators are variously accused. The indictment lists counts 30 and 31 — conspiracy to commit solicitation of fall statements and writings, and influencing witnesses — next to Kutti’s name. The FADER has reached out to Kutti for comment.
The charges against Kutti likely stem from an incident The FADER covered in December 2021. According to Reuters, Kutti knocked on the door of Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman on January 4 of that year, accusing her and her daughter of counting phony mail-in ballots.
The story gets more bizarre from there: Freeman agreed to speak with Kutti in the presence of a police officer, who took them to the Cobb County Police Station to discuss the situation further. Kutti, whose since-removed bio on the Women’s Global Initiative site says she served on Trump’s Young Black Media Council and that she started working for West as a publicist in 2018 before becoming his director of operations, referred to herself as a “crisis manager” during the interaction.
Footage of the conversation obtained by Reuters reportedly shows Kutti telling Freeman that, while she didn’t know the exact ramifications of Freeman’s alleged actions, they would “disrupt [her] freedom…and the freedom of one or more of [her] family members.” Kutti then orchestrated an hour-long phone conversation between Freeman and a man she falsely claimed was Harrison Ford, during which Kutti and the fake Ford badgered Freeman to confess to their allegations.
The following day (January 5), Freeman was contacted by an FBI agent who told her she needed to leave her house for her own safety, per Reuters. Hours after she left on January 6, the same day as the Capitol riot, Trump supporters with bullhorns surrounded her home.
The new indictment of Trump et al. was brought by Fani Willis, the same district attorney leading the RICO prosecution against Young Thug and members of his YSL crew. Trump’s indictment follows an investigation that lasted more than two years, according to Willis. It’s the fourth criminal case brought against the former president.
