Tory Lanez will have to wait one more day to find out his sentence for shooting fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion in 2020.
Lanez’s sentencing hearing began Monday at 10:30 a.m. PT in Los Angeles. Six hours later, Judge David Herriford said the hearing would continue in the morning.
On Monday afternoon, prosecutors read a victim impact statement from Megan Thee Stallion, who said she is still traumatized by the shooting and can’t bring herself to be in the same room as Lanez, according to the Associated Press.
“Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace,” she wrote in the statement read by Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta. “Slowly but surely, I’m healing and coming back, but I will never be the same.”
Related Story: Tory Lanez Writes Open Letter to Los Angeles County D.A.
The Houston rapper asked the judge to hold Lanez — born Daystar Peterson — accountable. Meanwhile the Canadian rapper’s father, Sonstar Peterson, pleaded for leniency.
The elder Peterson appeared in court as a character witness and got emotional as he talked about his son losing his mother at age 11.
“I don’t think anybody ever gets over that,” Peterson said about his son. “But his music became his outlet.”
Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was among dozens of people who wrote letters on Lanez’s behalf. Azalea asked the judge to give the rapper a sentence that is “transformative, not life-destroying.”
Herriford said Lanez’s six-year-old son sent in a handwritten letter, although it was not read in court.
Prosecutors have asked that the rapper be sentenced to 13 years in a California state prison, meantime defense attorneys requested probation for the 31-year-old rapper. The Canadian hip-hop star also faces deportation.
The rapper was found guilty on Dec. 23, 2022, and has remained in jail since then. He was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm; discharging a firearm with gross negligence; and carrying a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle; along with the special allegation of using a firearm to inflict great bodily injury.
Lanez was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 27, but the date was moved multiple times.
The delays came after the rapper replaced his trial attorney George Mgdesyan with famed defense lawyer Jose Baez in January. Baez won an acquittal for Casey Anthony in her 2011 trial for killing her young daughter, Caylee Anthony.
The new legal team filed a motion for a new trial in March, saying “the court erred on numerous questions of law.” The new defense team claimed prosecutors misrepresented DNA evidence in court, depriving Lanez of “a fair trial.”
On May 9, Herriford denied the motion, saying he found “no error, prosecutorial misconduct or newly discovered evidence.”
The “It Doesn’t Matter” rapper was arrested after Megan Thee Stallion, real name Megan Pete, was shot in the feet when she left a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills on July 12, 2020.
The shooting occurred when Megan and her former best friend, Kelsey Harris, got into an SUV with Lanez and his bodyguard, and a dispute erupted. Megan got out of the SUV and was shot in the feet.
During the trial, Lanez’s attorney blamed Harris for the shooting.
The rapper has maintained his innocence throughout the case.
