Rapper Tory Lanez faces a lengthy jail sentence at his upcoming sentencing on Monday, after felony charges for shooting and injuring hip-hop singer Megan Thee Stallion in the foot.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles have asked a court to sentence Lanez, 31, also known as Daystar Peterson, to 13 years in prison.
In a sentencing brief, they argued that, in addition to the offences for which he was convicted, Lanez re-traumatized Megan with social media postings about the case, which spurred many of his more than 2 million followers to attack her.
Megan might attend in court on Monday to provide a victim impact statement, or she could have one read for her.
Lanez’s lawyers argued in their own sentencing brief that he should be sentenced to probation and freed from prison to undergo a residential drug addiction programme.
They argue that the evidence used to condemn him was “questionable at best,” and that his lack of remorse should not be used in his sentence. According to the document, if the charges were genuine, alcohol addiction and early trauma would be issues.
Lanez has been imprisoned after a Los Angeles jury convicted him guilty of three felonies in December: assault with a semiautomatic pistol, possessing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and grossly negligent discharge of a firearm.
When Lanez’s father leaped up in the gallery and attacked the “wicked system” that convicted his son, the reading of the decision became a dramatic and tumultuous event. As other Lanez fans yelled about the injustice of the case, deputies hauled him out the courtroom. The sentence will take place on a greater level of security than the trial.
Lanez shot the pistol towards the back of Megan’s feet and called for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been travelling in July 2020, Megan stated during the trial. The two had just left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills mansion.
On May 9, Superior Court Judge David Herriford, who will sentence Lanez, dismissed Lanez’s defence counsel’ request for a new trial.
Lanez’s attorneys contended that an Instagram post from his account was unlawfully brought into evidence. They said Megan’s evidence that Lanez advised her not to go the police because he was on parole and would face significant consequences was both false and an unfair acceptance of earlier bad behaviour. They also claimed that the DNA evidence used by prosecutors to prove Lanez was the gunman fell well short of industry norms.
“I might be your son.” “I could be your brother,” Lanez implored as he was brought from the courthouse the day before the judge concluded that ignoring the contested material would have made no difference.
His attorneys want to appeal the conviction.
Lanez started releasing mixtapes in 2009 and quickly grew in fame, progressing to major-label albums. Megan Thee Stallion, now 28, was already a rising celebrity at the time of the shoot, and her fame has only grown since. In 2021, she received a Grammy for best new artist, and she has had No. 1 songs with “Savage,” with Beyoncé, and as a guest with Cardi B on “WAP.”
The claims and ensuing charges levelled numerous rounds of disinformation and online hostility at Lanez, triggering discussions about misogynoir – a unique kind of sexism suffered by Black women.
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