A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday denied Tory Lanez’s request for a new trial, a ruling that follows the rapper’s felony assault conviction from December 2022 in the shooting of fellow hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion
A sentencing date has not been set, but Judge David Herriford of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California indicated during a hearing on April 17 that Lanez would be sentenced within 30 days of the decision on the motion for a new trial.
The decision came one day after a hearing in which Lanez’s attorney argued for a new trial. As the five-hour hearing wrapped up, the rapper urged the judge to grant him a new trial.
“Your honor, please don’t ruin my life,”
Lanez’s said as he was escorted out of the courtroom
Superior Court Judge Herriford rejected arguments from lawyers for Lanez that evidence was wrongly admitted at the trial he presided over. He said that the exclusion of the disputed evidence would not have made a difference at the trial.
Lanez, 30, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, will now be sentenced for convictions of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
He could get up to 22 years in prison and faces deportation to his native Canada.
As he was led from the courtroom back to jail after a hearing on the motion a day earlier, he pleaded with Herriford to help him, saying “I could be your son. I could be your brother.”
Motions for a new trial filed immediately afterward with the same judge are a common precursor to appealing to a higher court, which Lanez’s attorneys plan to do. The motions are very rarely successful.
Lanez’s lawyers asserted that a post from his Instagram account was improperly admitted into evidence. They said that Megan’s testimony that Lanez urged her not to go to police because he was on parole and would be in serious trouble was both untrue and an improper allowance of prior bad acts.
And they said DNA evidence that prosecutors used to argue Lanez was the likely shooter fell well short of industry standards.
Lanez’s attorneys were disappointed from the start of Monday’s all-day oral arguments on their motion.
