After public spat, new lawyer joins Tory Lanez's defense team as would-be lawyer steps aside
A strange 24 hours in the criminal case that's captivated the hip-hop industry included the would-be lawyer speaking candidly with me about her visit with Lanez in jail.
A lawyer who wanted to free Tory Lanez from jail because of cruel and unusual punishment will not represent the rapper after he chose Wednesday to hire another attorney.
Ronda Renee Dixon hoped to replace attorney Matthew Barhoma, but Lanez’s lead lawyer, Jose Baez, said he’s instead hiring longtime criminal defense attorney Thomas Edward “Ed” Welbourn to prepare for Lanez’s Aug. 7 sentencing for shooting rapper Megan Thee Stallion in the feet three years ago.
“We plan to proceed to sentencing by August 7 as ordered by the court,” Baez told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford via phone Wednesday afternoon.
Herriford asked Lanez if that’s what he wants.
“Yes, sir,” said Lanez, sitting at the defense table wearing his usual orange jail garb, white long-sleeved shirt and black cap.
Herriford ask Lanez to confirm he’s not asking Dixon to join his case.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Lanez said.
Minutes earlier, Lanez had met privately with Dixon in a courthouse holding cell. He then spoke privately with Barhoma and Baez before Herriford took the bench.
When Herriford asked what was going on, Barhoma sad, “I’m not really sure where we stand” before Baez said he could explain.
The prominent Miami, Florida, criminal defense attorney said he’d be saying “as little as possible given the unique set of circumstances,” then told Herriford he didn’t know Dixon visited Lanez in jail “until after being informed that she was substituting in for Mr. Barhoma.”
Baez also didn’t know of Dixon’s motion to release Lanez from jail until after she filed it.
“That is not something as lead counsel I am endorsing,” Baez said.
He didn’t say why, but the argument that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment is not new, and the broad body of caselaw doesn’t favor Dixon’s argument that Lanez should be released.
In 1995, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that “administrative segregation, even in a single cell for twenty-three hours a day, is within the terms of confinement ordinarily contemplated by a sentence.” In April, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition from a prisoner who argued his 27 years in solitary confinement violate the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Baez told Herriford that he’ll continue to serve as Lanez’s lead counsel and appellate counsel and “another team member” also will join the case. Barhoma will remain on the case until Welbourn files his notice of appearance, which Baez said Wednesday he expects “to happen in the next 48 hours.”
Dixon told Herriford she was withdrawing her motion to release Lanez. Herriford said it was already filed so will remain with the case, but the judge said he never formally accepted it because Dixon was not Lanez’s lawyer.
The five-minute hearing ended with Dixon telling Herriford that Baez’s comments were “not 100 percent true.”
“I did not solicit the client. The client called me several times, and I met with him,” said Dixon, a licensed California attorney since 1988 who owns the Dixon Justice Center in Los Angeles. She said a client who is housed on the same jail tier as Lanez “asked me to meet with him because he wanted to be explained to him what was going on with his sentencing.”
“Alright. August 7 it is. We’ll see everyone at that time,” Herriford said.
Before hanging up, Baez said he never accused Dixon of soliciting Lanez, only that he was unaware she met with him.
“Understood,” the judge said.
With that, Dixon’s brief and bizarre involvement in Lanez’s case was over. She told me in the hallway afterward as we waited for an elevator, “That happened because of the article you leaked. They got pissed off at me.”
She was referring to the article I published about 12:50 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday after we spoke on the phone Tuesday. She’d sent me an email at 4:16 p.m. Tuesday with the subject “New Attorney for: Daystar Shemuel Peterson.”
“We have been following your work for a few months now and wanted to give you the FIRST opportunity to know - understand and write on the new events happening with our Client,” Dixon wrote.
I called her a few minutes later, and she had a lot to say. She criticized Barhoma and Baez and told me she didn’t want to work under Baez. She told me about her motion to free Lanez from jail, and she said he was depressed when she met with him in jail.
“His eyes were black. He was totally despondent. He told me he wanted to go to state prison. I said, ‘You want to go to state prison? Why?’ He said, ‘At least I’ll be able to go out in the yard and talk to people,’” Dixon said. “That upset me. I don’t think he’s guilty.”
She also said Baez and Barhoma were taking advantage of Lanez, and she said Barhoma charged him $90,000 for the appellate writ seeking Herriford’s recusal, but Lanez has only paid $40,000 so far and Barhoma hadn’t sent all case documents because of the debt.
Barhoma told me in an email that Dixon’s statements are false.
“None of it is true. And Ronda Dixon has all case materials from Mr. Baez and I,” he wrote.
Dixon emailed me a copy of her motion to free Lanez as well as the substitution of counsel form, dated June 27. She’d signed it as well as Barhoma and Lanez, but she told me that Herriford hadn’t authorized it and that’s what the hearing was to discuss.
I was in the hallway outside Herriford’s courtroom on Wednesday, waiting for the 4:15 p.m. hearing, when someone asked Dixon if she was the new defense attorney.
“Maybe, We’ll see,” she answered.
A few minutes later, she had her answer. She looked dejected when she told me my article was to blame. She declined further comment.
Needless to say, it was a strange 24 hours in the world that is reporting on Tory Lanez’s case for shooting Megan Thee Stallion. Lanez’s team named me in an Instagram story Wednesday night that says to “disregard anything Megan Cuniff [sp] reports on Tory Lanez…her objective, perspective/narrative has always been negative and extremely biased towards him .. if there is an update on tory it will come from this page first .if it doesn’t come from this page . It’s not real .”
The post doesn’t specify what’s supposedly wrong with my reporting, which is always a clear sign there’s nothing actually wrong with any of it. I can’t pretend to know what’s happening in Lanez’s team’s world, but my best guess is they are at least a little bit embarrassed by the Ronda Dixon episode and posted that as a a coping mechanism.
Journalistically speaking, Dixon’s sudden presence in my life presented a bit of a conundrum in terms of the old saying, “Trust but verify.”
After our discussion on Tuesday, I remarked to a friend that I had no proof she ever actually met with Lanez, and what if she really hadn’t and was just telling me she had. Then Dixon emailed me a copy of the signed notice of substitution of counsel. I also emailed Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys Alex Bott and Kathy Ta on Tuesday asking if there was a hearing scheduled, and Bott replied, “A new lawyer is seeking to substitute in as counsel of record. The hearing on this is set for tomorrow at 4:15 pm.”
Barhoma also confirmed Dixon’s involvement when he replied to my email. That was enough for me to publish Wednesday’s article.
Regarding Lanez’s current demeanor, he appeared a bit dejected when he was in court on June 13. I don’t think that’s unusual for anyone who’s in the situation he is in. The Men’s Central Jail is a notorious hellhole, and basically anyone who isn’t a Mexican Mafia boss running the jail drug trade wants to get to state prison immediately.
Lanez addressed his condition in a June 19 Instagram post that said he wants his friends, family and fans to know “I haven’t lost my faith in God and that I’m in high spirits.”
“I’m praying for the best and remain confident that God will bring me through this,” the post reads. “I have spent the last 7 months rehabilitating my mind, my body and my soul.”
“Though I came to jail a good person, I will leave as a great person. I’ve turned this jail cell into my work office,” it continues.
Lanez’s sentencing recommendation is due Aug. 1. Prosecutors want him to serve 13 years in prison after a jury convicted him on Dec. 23 of first-degree assault, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and having an unregistered and concealed firearm in a vehicle.
Prosecutors’ full sentencing recommendation describes Lanez’s “campaign of misinformation” since the July 12, 2020, shooting, which occurred about 4:25 a.m. on a residential street in the Hollywood Hills after Lanez, Lanez’s driver, Megan and Megan’s friend Kelsey Harris left a gathering at reality star Kylie Jenner’s home.
“His online posts for nearly three years have re-traumatized the victim,” prosecutors wrote. “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. He is responsible for the effect of his words and his actions.”
Welbourn, the attorney Baez identified on Wednesday, will address possible mitigating factors for Lanez that could persuade Herriford to impose a lesser sentence. He has plenty of experience: He was an Orange County deputy district attorney for four years before going into private practice in 2003, and he focuses entirely on criminal cases in California state court.
Welbourn has a firm in Newport Beach with longtime criminal defense attorneys Kate Corrigan and Al Stokke. All are leaders in the legal community and respected by opposing counsel. I profiled the firm in 2019 as part of the Los Angeles Daily Journal’s small firm profile series, and it was easy to find people who wanted to comment. Matt Murphy, a former Orange County deputy district attorney and current true crime TV star, told me, “Unlike some lawyers, you can’t beat them waiting for them to make a mistake.”
“They are also refreshingly professional in a time when many young defense lawyers are being trained not to be,” Murphy told me.
Murphy faced Welbourn in court several times, including in 2018 when prosecuting Welbourn’s client Edward Shin for murdering his business partner. The night after Dateline NBC spotlighted the guilty verdict, Murphy and Welbourn both attended the Corrigan Welbourn Stokke, APLC, holiday party at Corrigan’s Newport Beach home.
“You know you are dealing with professionals when you have more respect for them at the end of a trial than at the beginning,” Murphy told me. “I more than respect them; I actually like them.”
Murphy also faced off against Welbourn in the most high-profile prosecution of his career: the double-murder case of Skylar DeLeon, a former Mighty Morphin Power Rangers actor who murdered a couple while pretending to be interested in buying their yacht. Welbourn defended DeLeon in the 2009 trial. His firm’s website has articles about other high-profile cases he’s handled. Check it out here.
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what a mess. tory should have just taken that plea deal