Rapper Tory Lanez’ sentencing after being found guilty in the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion will stretch into Tuesday.
Judge David Herriford had been expected to sentence the 31-year-old Canadian rapper, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, on Monday after several delays at a hearing that often can take only a couple of hours. However, the judge had attorneys for the two sides argue each factor of his potential sentence and allowed seven witnesses to give statements on behalf of Lanez.
His sentencing hearing was originally scheduled for January, but was rescheduled when Lanez hired new attorneys and again after his legal team filed a motion for a new trial. The motion was denied in May.
Megan issued a victim impact statement Monday, read by Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta.
Iggy Azalea supports Tory Lanez with letter at sentencing hearing
Lanez’ father grew emotional in court as he described his son losing his mother at age 11 as a judge prepared the rapper’s sentence Monday.
Sonstar Peterson, a Christian minister, choked back tears as he talked about his wife, Luella, dying just a few days after showing the first symptoms of a rare blood disorder. “I don’t think anybody ever gets over that,” said Peterson about the reaction of their youngest child, Lanez. “But his music became his outlet.”
The elder Peterson was one of several people who gave statements on Lanez’ character and charitable giving. Dozens more wrote letters to Judge David Herriford, including the mother of Lanez’ young son, who spoke of his qualities as a father, and rapper Iggy Azalea, who asked Herriford to hand down a sentence that was “transformative, not life-destroying.”
The judge said Lanez’ son, who is about 6 years old, also wrote him a handwritten letter, but he did not describe it further.
Prosecutors want Tory Lanez to serve 13 years, defense attorneys push for probation in sentencing memos
On June 6, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón submitted a sentencing memorandum, recommending Lanez be sentenced to 13 years in state prison. The district attorney’s office also cited his “lack of remorse as a basis to deny probation.”
In the 12-page memo, first reported and obtained by reporter Meghann Cuniff, prosecutors wrote, “The defendant has failed to exhibit any remorse, which begs the question whether any of the apologies he directed to the victim in his text message and jail call were genuine and not just driven by an effort to maintain her silence.”
“Except for the jail call admission and his apology text to the victim back in July 2020, the defendant has spent nearly three years since that time waging a campaign of misinformation to re-traumatize the victim,” prosecutors continued.
In the sentencing memorandum, Gascón and Deputy District Attorneys Kathy Ta and Alexander Bott said Lanez “not only lacks remorse, he is clearly incapable of accepting any responsibility for his own actions.”
Tory Lanez found guilty of all charges in Megan Thee Stallion shooting: ‘There is justice’
The prosecutors referenced Lanez’s claims about the incident on social media and his “full-length album with several songs about the shooting” as examples.
“His online reach is worldwide (millions of followers plus casual observers) and the defendant’s statements embolden his followers so that they too have been complicit in re-traumatizing the victim,” they wrote.
Lawyers for Lanez said in their own sentencing memo that he should get only probation and be released from jail to enter a residential substance abuse program.
They say the evidence that led to his conviction was “questionable at best” and that his lack of remorse should therefore not be a factor in his sentencing. The memo says if the allegations were true, then alcohol abuse and childhood trauma would be factors.
Jury finds Tory Lanez guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in December
Lanez was found guilty of three felonies in December for leaving the “Traumazine” rapper wounded with bullet fragments in her feet.
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for a day and a half before convicting Lanez of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
The Canadian rapper’s shooting trial began Dec. 12, 2022, more than two years after Megan Thee Stallion accused the R&B artist of inflicting “great bodily injury” toward her. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors said Lanez fired a gun at a victim identified as “Megan P.” after she got out of an SUV during an argument in the Hollywood Hills on July 12, 2020. (Megan’s legal name is Megan Pete.)
At first, Los Angeles police reported the incident as shots fired, a woman with foot injuries and a man arrested on a weapons allegation. Megan revealed a few days later that her foot injuries came from gunshots. Following months of speculation and publicity surrounding the incident, prosecutors charged Lanez with felony assault in October 2020. Lanez pleaded not guilty in November 2020.
‘SNL’:Megan Thee Stallion puts health administration degree to use in ‘Hot Girl Hospital’
Megan Thee Stallion testimony in Tory Lanez shooting trial: ‘He was holding the gun, pointing it at me’
Megan took the stand on Dec. 13 to testify she saw Lanez fire the handgun at her foot in the summer of 2020. She said tensions escalated between them during a car ride after leaving a party at Kylie Jenner’s house, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone.
She said Lanez “had an attitude” because she had asked to leave the party early. The rapper added Lanez then told her she needed to “stop lying” to friend Kelsey Harris, who was also in the car, about their past sexual relationship.
The pair went on to trade barbs over their respective music careers, Megan said, prompting her to ask to be let out of the vehicle. However, as she began to walk away from the car, Megan said she heard Lanez say “dance, (expletive)” as the singer shot her.
“I’m in shock. I’m scared. I hear a gun going off, and I can’t believe he’s shooting at me,” Megan said. “He was holding the gun, pointing it at me.”
After getting back in the car, Megan said Lanez promised her and Harris $1 million to keep quiet about the assault. Megan said she refrained from initially reporting the shooting to police, citing heightened tensions surrounding police brutality at the time.
“This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd, and if I said this man just shot me, I didn’t know if they might shoot first and ask questions later,” Megan explained, adding that in the Black community “it’s not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers.”
Megan Thee Stallion reflects on shooting in powerful Elle essay
Megan Thee Stallion wrote about being a “survivor” in an essay for Elle on April 18 that accompanied her appearance on the magazine’s May cover.
“When the guilty verdict came on Dec. 23, 2022, it was more than just vindication for me, it was a victory for every woman who has ever been shamed, dismissed, and blamed for a violent crime committed against them,” Megan wrote.
She went on to discuss the “public humiliation” she faced as some people tried to discredit her trauma and advocated for “safer environments for women to come forward about violent behavior without fear of retaliation.”
“We must provide stronger resources for women to recover from these tragedies physically and emotionally, without fear of judgment,” she wrote. “We must do more than say her name. We must protect all women who have survived the unimaginable.”
‘We must protect all women’:Megan Thee Stallion reflects on Tory Lanez verdict in powerful essay
Contributing: Charles Trepany, USA TODAY; Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
