Rapper Tory Lanez has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Los Angeles court for shooting Megan Thee Stallion.
A judge has sentenced rapper Tory Lanez to 10 years in prison for shooting and wounding hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion in the feet, ending a three-year legal and cultural saga that has seen two careers falter.
Judge David Herriford of the Los Angeles Superior Court handed down the sentence against Lanez, 31, who was convicted in December of three felony counts: assault with a semi-automatic firearm, possession of a loaded firearm and not searched a vehicle and discharge of a firearm due to gross negligence.
From the initial incident in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020, to the marathon two-day hearing that would determine the ruling, the case created controversy in the hip-hop community, stirring up issues such as the reluctance of black victims to speak to the public. police, gender politics in hip-hop, internet toxicity, the protection of black women, and the ramifications of misogynoir, a particular type of misogyny experienced by black women.
Herriford said it was “difficult to reconcile” the portrait that Lanez’s friends and family painted during the trial of a kind, caring person and a good father of a 6-year-old son with the person who fired the gun at Megan.
“Sometimes good people do bad things,” Herriford said. “Actions have consequences, and in this case there are no winners,” he continued.
Megan, 28, testified during the trial that Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, shot her in the back of her feet and yelled at her to dance as she walked away from an SUV they had been in, after a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house. She had to undergo surgery to remove bullet fragments. She revealed who had fired the gun only months later.
“Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace,” Megan said in a statement read in court by a prosecutor on Monday. “Slowly but surely, I am healing and coming back, but I will never be the same again.”
Lanez pleaded with Herriford for clemency just before the judge handed down his sentence, asking for probation or a minimal prison term.
“If I could go back and change the series of events that night, I would,” Lanez said. “The victim was my friend. The victim is someone I still care about to this day,” she asserted.
And he added: “For everything I did wrong that night, I take full responsibility.”
Lanez appeared stunned as the sentence was read, but had no audible reaction. His family and the fans present in the room also remained silent after the sentence.
The rapper has already served 10 months of his sentence for the time he has already spent in jail. “We are extremely disappointed,” Lanez’s lead lawyer, José Báez, said. “I have seen homicides and other cases where there is death, and the defendant still receives less than 10 years,” he lamented.
ADVERTISINGBaez called the sentence “really another example of someone being punished for their celebrity status and someone being used to set an example. And he’s not an example. He’s a human being,” he stressed.
Lanez’s lawyers plan to appeal the verdict and try to get him released on bail while they appeal the sentence.
Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, was repeatedly praised by prosecutors for her courage in testifying during the case and enduring the online hate campaigns directed against her.
“I hope that Ms. Pete’s courage gives hope to those who feel helpless,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said at a news conference after the sentencing.
