Tory Lanez won’t be getting a new trial, Los Angeles District Attorney’s office confirmed to HuffPost on Tuesday, following multiple reports.
After a two-week trial in December 2022, a Los Angeles jury convicted Lanez, whose government name is Daystar Peterson, on all three charges he faced in the July 2020 shooting of rapper Megan Thee Stallion. He was found guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s criminal case against him.
“The court finds no error, prosecutorial misconduct or newly discovered evidence,” Judge David Herriford, who presided over Lanez’s trial, said Tuesday, according to City News Service. “Motion denied.”
Herriford added, according to journalist Meghann Cuniff’s reporting: “In the end, the jury believed the prosecution’s case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Lanez’s sentencing date has not been officially announced as of yet.
“We have full faith and confidence in our trial team and are pleased with the court’s ruling in the matter,” the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office told HuffPost in an emailed statement.
The decision came after multiple hearings and arguments since Lanez’s post-trial attorneys, who differ from other attorneys who represented him before and during the trial, filed a motion for a new trial in March.
“Please don’t ruin my life,” Lanez told Herriford in front of the court at a Monday hearing. “I could be your brother.” Both Lanez and Herriford are Black. (Lanez has relied heavily on his “protect Black men” stance throughout his trial and the two years leading up to it.)
Lanez’s attorneys claimed that “multiple errors” occurred throughout the trial — including Herriford’s allowance of an Instagram comment and pre-trial testimony from Megan’s former best friend Kelsey Harris to be used during the trial — causing a “miscarriage of justice” in the motion for a new trial, which Cuniff’s Legal Affairs and Trials published. Lanez’s current attorneys did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Prosecutors said the motion lacked “substance.”
“The defendant’s brief is replete with colorful rhetoric and conclusory statements, but it lacks substance,” read the prosecutors’ opposition.
“Despite being nearly 80 pages long, the defendant has failed to cite a single instance of error in the trial court,” it reads.
Lanez faces up to 22 years in prison and possible deportation to Canada, his home country. With this motion denied, it’s possible that Lanez’s attorneys will seek an appeal after his sentencing.
Megan Thee Stallion, whose government name is Megan Pete, spoke publicly about the trial for the final time last month in an essay for Elle.
“As I reflect on the past three years, I view myself as a survivor, because I have truly survived the unimaginable,” Megan said. “Not only did I survive being shot by someone I trusted and considered a close friend, but I overcame the public humiliation of having my name and reputation dragged through the mud by that individual for the entire world to see.”
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.