Canadian rapper, 31-year-old Tory Lanez, was sentenced to 10 years after he was found guilty of shooting hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion in the foot after the pair left a Los Angeles, California party in 2020.
The hearing began Monday and wrapped Tuesday, ending a high-profile case that saw Megan, subjected to what prosecutors called “repeated and grotesque attacks” and cast a spotlight on the scrutiny Black women face when reporting abuse.
Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, shot the three-time Grammy winner, whose legal name is Megan Pete, following a party at reality star and makeup mogul Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home July 12, 2020.
Lanez had pleaded not guilty, but a jury found him guilty of three felony charges in December: assault with a semi-automatic firearm, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
The charges carried a maximum sentence of 22 years and eight months behind bars. Prosecutors asked for a 13-year sentence, noting in a sentencing memorandum that Lanez re-traumatized the “Savage” rapper with social media posts about the trial, that led his followers to target her.
In seeking a shorter sentence, his lawyers argued for probation and that he be released from jail to a residential substance abuse program. They claimed Lanez has alcohol abuse disorder, anxiety and post-traumatic stress from the unexpected death of his mother when he was 11-years-old.
Prosecutors said they were “skeptical” of those claims, which were not presented throughout the trail.
“This case has nothing to do with mental illness,” prosecutor Alex Bott said. “He shot Meghan because she bruised his ego.”
Lawyers for the defense countered that there is a clear thread between Lanez’s trauma and heavy alcohol use and his violent actions in 2020.
“Someone has to be severely off to shoot someone because of a bruised ego,” Baez said.
The judge said he was “disinclined” to allow those factors to influence his decision
Megan testified that Lanez shouted for her to “dance” and fired a gun toward her feet when she walked away from an SUV the pair were in with two others. She told the court that she initially told police that she had cut her feet on glass when asked why she was bleeding. Doctors later found bullet fragments in her foot at the hospital that required her to undergo surgery.
In an April interview on prior to the trial, she told Gayle King that she initially lied to police because she feared getting into a more dangerous situation.
“You think I’m about to tell the police that we … us Black people got a gun in the car?” she said. “You want me to tell the law that we got a gun in the car so they can shoot all of us up?”
Megan, who publicly named Lanez as the shooter in an Instagram Live video and addressed the incident in her song “Shots Fired,” also testified about the physical pain she still endures.
“I couldn’t walk for a while,” she said. “I still have nerve damage. I can’t really feel the side of my left foot. The back of my feet are always sore, but I just push through it.”
She told the court that Lanez offered her $1 million to keep quiet about the shooting.
Lanez, who dedicated an entire album to rebutting her version of events, did not testify at trial. His lawyers called Megan’s testimony, that Lanez asked her not to go to police because he was on parole, false and also argued that DNA evidence prosecutors used to identify him as the likely shooter fell short of industry standards.
His legal team also called the trial a “case about jealousy,” telling the jurors that Megan and her former friend Kelsey Nicole Harris, who was also in the car at the time of the incident, had gotten into an argument about Lanez and other men.
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