A jury found rapper Tory Lanez guilty on Friday of all charges related to the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion before a celebration in Los Angeles.
The Grammy-winning rapper accused Lanez of shooting her in the foot after the couple left a celebration at Kylie Jenner’s house in 2020. Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, pleaded not guilty to shooting her and dedicated a whole album to debunking Megan Thee’s Stallion version of events.
He was originally charged with assault with a semi-automatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. Prosecutors added a 3rd charge, firing a firearm with gross negligence, earlier this month. Lanez faces a maximum of 22 years and eight months in prison. He also faces deportation to his native Canada after serving his sentence.
The jury reached their verdict after seven hours of deliberation. Lanez was immediately arrested after the sentencing.
A hearing on the verdict is scheduled for January 27.
In an announcement released after the verdict, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón praised Megan Thee Stallion for her “courage.”
“You have got shown incredible courage and vulnerability along with your testimony, despite repeated and grotesque attacks that you simply didn’t deserve,” he said. “You have faced unfair and vile scrutiny that no woman should ever face, and you have been an inspiration to others across L.A. County and across the country.”
Megan Thee Stallion’s attorney Alex Spiro said in an announcement: “The jury was right. I’m grateful that Meg is doing justice.”
The case began in July 2020, when police stopped an SUV carrying the couple and two other people in the Hollywood Hills. Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, testified that she initially told police she had cut her foot with glass when asked why she was bleeding.
She was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where doctors found bullet fragments in her foot that required surgery to remove them.
“I could not walk for some time,” she testified. “I still have nerve damage. I actually cannot feel the side of my left foot. The back of my foot is at all times sore, but I just push it through.”
She publicly stated on her Instagram just a few weeks after the incident that she was shot and eventually identified Lanez as the shooter. She later took aim at him in the song “Shots Fired”.
In her testimony, Megan Thee Stallion said Lanez offered her $1 million to maintain quiet about the shooting.
in interview with Gayle King in Aprilbefore the trial, Megan Thee Stallion explained that she initially lied to the police because she was afraid of being put in a more dangerous situation.
“You’re thinking that I will tell the police that we… we black people have guns in the automobile?” she asked. “You wish me to inform the law we now have guns in the automobile so that they can shoot us all?”
Lanez declined to testify in his defense. His lawyers called Sean Kelly, a witness who lives in the area, to inform the court that he was woke up by two women fighting on the night of the shooting.
Kelly testified that he saw two women fighting, by varietybut then said he saw what seemed to be multiple gunshots from a person who was “shooting all over the place”.
Jurors also listened to a taped interview with Megan Thee Stallion’s former friend Kelsey Harris from September, through which she detailed an altercation between the two rappers.
Harris, who was also in the SUV, testified in court before the tape was played that she didn’t remember many details of the shooting, but reportedly gave clear details of the night to prosecutors.
Harris said in a recorded interview that she overheard the two arguing about their “artwork” and careers prior to the shooting, in keeping with Rolling Stone. She said Lanez told the women to get out of the SUV and Megan Thee Stallion was walking away when the first shots were fired.
“He’s shooting over the door,” Harris told prosecutors. “(He) leans over the front passenger door and fires a pistol.”
The process has aroused great interest on the Web, and plenty of Megan Thee Stallion fans have criticized the public attention to the rapper’s sexual story. Fans call for shaming the whore or blaming the victim to distract from the violence she was subjected to. On the day she went to court, hundreds of netizens used the hashtag #WeStandWithMegan to virtually rise up for her.
One user tweeted with over 48,000 likes: “I personally don’t care if Megan slept with the entire city of Houston. WHY WAS SHE SHOT?”
Other celebrities have also spoken out about the case online, including Cardi B, co-worker Megan Thee Stallion of ‘WAP’. She called her a “superstar” in an Instagram live stream.
“Why would someone lie about being shot?” said Cardi. “Why?”
Not all online chats support Megan Thee Stallion. Rapper 50 Cent tweeted earlier this month with a series of photos that showed Megan Thee Stallion transforming into actor Jussi Smollett. He wrote that he was “confused” and “didn’t know what to think” before adding the link to his merch site.
Smollett was sentenced to prison and extra probation in March for falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in 2019.