Tory Lanez's sentencing is Monday for shooting Megan Thee Stallion. Here's how to follow along.
Prosecutors are asking for 13 years in prison while Lanez is asking for probation.
UPDATE: Sentencing continues Tuesday. Here’s my Twitter thread from court.
Rapper Tory Lanez is to be sentenced Monday for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet and injuring her three years ago in the Hollywood Hills.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford at the Clara Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Lanez, 31, has been in jail since Dec. 23 after a jury convicted him of first-degree assault, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and having a concealed and unregistered firearm in a vehicle. He maintains his innocence.
What kind of sentence is he facing?
Prosecutors want Lanez sentenced to 13 years in prison. Read my article on their recommendation here.
His attorneys are asking for him to be sentenced to probation or three years in prison. They acknowledge that, legally, he’s presumed ineligible for probation, but they say his case is so unusual it warrants an exception. Read my article on their recommendation here.
Judge Herriford has said the sentencing will be a bifurcated hearing, with the first part focused on the aggravating circumstances that prosecutors want him to consider.
Legally, Herriford can only factor in two — great bodily harm and use of a gun — because those are the two found true by the jury. But Deputy District Attorneys Alex Bott and Kathy Ta also cite Lanez’s lack of remorse and Megan’s vulnerability as a victim, and they describe his “high level of callousness.” Read my article on their position here.
Lanez will have 60 days to file his notice of appeal after Herriford enters judgment.
What is the case about?
Lanez was first arrested on a gun charge on July 12, 2020, after Los Angeles police pulled over the Escalade he was in on Hollywood Boulevard after a report of gunfire about 4:25 a.m. Lanez, Megan and Megan’s friend and assistant at the time, Kelsey Nicole Harris, had just left reality star Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home.
Megan, bleeding from her feet, was taken to a hospital by ambulance, while her best friend and assistant at the time, Kelsey Nicole Harris, was taken to a police station with Lanez and his driver, Jaquan Smith. Megan had bullet fragments in her feet, according to testimony and medical records, some which were removed by surgeons and some which still remain.
Lanez bonded out of jail shortly after his arrest. His lawyer argued in trial that Harris shot Megan in a jealous fight related to their shared romantic interest in Lanez.
Megan didn’t tell police she’d been shot until four days later, first insisting that she’d merely stepped on glass. She testified about her reasons for doing so, citing the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and her fear after Los Angeles police ordered them out of the Escalade at gunpoint. She also testified in trial bout the sexual shaming she’s endured and the suicidal thoughts she’s had because of constant rumor-mongering and harassment.
Dressed in a purple, the color associated with domestic violence awareness, Megan testified on Dec. 13 that she exited the Escalade after arguing with Lanez, then heard Lanez say “Dance, bitch” before he opened fire.
Harris was a witness for the prosecution, but she refused on the stand to identify Lanez as the shooter and instead said she never saw him with a gun. She also said she was untruthful with prosecutors in a recorded 80-minute interview in September 2022 when she clearly identified Lanez as the gunman and said he’d attacked her after the shooting, pulling her hair and bruising her neck. Smith, Lanez’s driver, did not testify.
Jurors ended up hearing Harris’ entire September interview after Judge Herriford ruled Lanez’s lawyer opened the door for it by implying prosecutors unfairly pressured Harris during it.
Here’s the full interview:
Other witnesses included Sean Kelly, a Hollywood Hills homeowner who witnessed the shooting on Nichols Canyon Road from his bedroom balcony. Kelly testified that he saw Lanez “firing everywhere.” Asked how many shots, Kelly answered “four or five.” He also said the muzzle flashes originated with a woman, but he emphatically described Lanez as “going crazy” and hurling “a torrent of abuse” at a woman who fell to the ground after the flashes.
Prosecutors’ evidence included an apologetic text Lanez sent to Megan after the shooting, as well as a phone call Lanez made to Harris from jail in which he apologizes and says he was drunk and didn’t know what he was going on, that he doesn’t “move like that” and can’t remember what they were arguing about. Lanez’s lawyers say he was apologizing for sleeping with both Megan and Harris, not for shooting Megan.
What’s happened since the verdict?
After the verdict, Lanez replaced his trial lawyer, George Mgdeysan, with David Kenner, the criminal defense attorney whose represented Suge Knight and Snoop Dogg, and Matthew Barhoma of Barhoma Law in Los Angeles. Kenner eventually left the case and prominent Miami, Florida, lawyer Jose Baez took over.
Baez and Barhoma took an unorthodox approach to the standard motion for new trial, moving to disqualify Judge Herriford in the middle of the hearing. Herriford rejected their two attempts, then rejected the motion for new trial. Baez and Barhoma then asked the appellate court to disqualify Herriford or order him to grant a new trial, which the appellate court declined to do.
Then in late July, Los Angeles attorney Ronda Dixon announced she was joining the case to replace Barhoma.
It never happened: She signed a notice of appearance, but she met with Lanez in a holding cell at the courthouse on July 12, and Lanez chose to stay with Baez and a local attorney Baez wanted to hire, T. Edward Welbourn of Corrigan Welbourn Stokke, APLC in Newport Beach.
Before the hearing, Dixon told me in a phone interview that Lanez was “totally despondent” when she met with him in jail a week earlier.
“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.
Here’s my article on the end of the “Help Me, Ronda” episode:
The coverage led to Lanez’s team calling me out in an Instagram story that urged people not to trust my reporting. But they never said what specifically I’ve wrongly reported, and Lanez’s own sentencing memo backs what Dixon told me about Lanez’s jail conditions.
Here’s the full 41-page defense sentencing memo:
Here’s the full 12-page prosecution memo:
Here’s the five-page memo on the aggravating circumstances:
Will Megan be at the sentencing?
Prosecutors have said they expect Megan to submit a victim impact statement in some form, which means it may not be in person. She hasn’t publicly signaled one way or the other, and she’s been busy with concerts: She headlined the L.A. Pride Festival in June and performed at the Essence Festival in New Orleans in July, and she’ll be at Outside Lands in San Francisco next weekend. She’s also been more active on social media, and she opened up about the case in an Elle cover story in April.
One other person who has a right to speak during tomorrow’s person is Lanez himself. He hasn’t said much in court beyond “yes, Your Honor,” but he did make an urgent plea to Herriford at the end of his hearing on his motion for new trial.
“Please don’t ruin my life. Please don’t ruin my life. Please, Your Honor. Please. I could be your son,” Lanez told Herriford, who is Black. “I could be your brother. Please don’t ruin my life, judge.”
Here it is memorialized in the court’s reporter’s transcript:
In case you missed it, Lanez replaced his original trial attorney, Shawn Holley, after she told him in an email that she didn’t believe blaming Harris for shooting Megan was a “viable strategy.”
Here’s the email:
The filings related to Holley’s email also revealed a records preservation letter that Megan’s lawyer, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, sent Harris and Lanez over a “potential civil action.”
And here’s the full article with much, much more:
How to follow me across all platforms:
It’s difficult to know exactly what to expect, but I will be at the courthouse early and sharing updates on Twitter or what it’s called now, as well as Threads and Instagram.
It would be truly insane if Judge Herriford managed to not make a decision tomorrow and we all have to go back on Tuesday, but it very well could happen. It also could be over in a couple hours. It’s taking place on the more-secure 9th floor instead of Herriford’s 15th floor courtroom. Lanez’s father had an epic freak out in the courtroom after he was convicted, so I’m betting the bailiffs will be on heightened alert.
I will email an article about the hearing as soon as it ends. Subscribe to get it in your inbox.
I’ll also be live on YouTube during noon hour. Check it out here:
I also hope to go live after I get home Monday night. Stay tuned.
ICYMI, I chronicled the history of the DNA evidence claims in the case in a Sunday article:
You can find all my coverage, including links to my trial articles for Law & Crime News, here.
Thank you for reading Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff. If it’s within your budget, please consider purchasing a subscription to support my work. I work independently, and I depend on subscriptions and tips to make ends meet. You can pay below through Substack or you can pay through Venmo (MeghannCuniff), CashApp ($MeghannCuniff) and Zelle: (meghanncuniff [at] gmail [dot] com). Thank you for your support!