Yahoo Movies Tory Lanez Released From House Arrest as Trial in Megan Thee Stallion Shooting Begins
Tory Lanez was released from house arrest over the strenuous objections of prosecutors on Monday as jury selection started in his felony assault case alleging he shot Megan Thee Stallion during a drunken dispute in July 2020.
“I will terminate the house arrest at this point. The main reason is that during trial, it’s difficult to have a client who’s not accessible. I’m doing this mainly for the trial preparation aspect,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford ruled before calling in the first pool of prospective jurors. He said the Alone at Prom performer’s $350,000 bond in the case would stand.
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Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta fought the court’s decision, arguing that Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, allegedly tried to “sway” or “intimidate” witnesses previously in the case. She said once testimony begins and everyone is in the same jurisdiction, witnesses might have their “concerns magnified” and “fear” being “in reach of him.”
“We have a couple witnesses, not just one,” who might be affected, Ta said, asking the judge to at least force Peterson to keep his ankle monitor. The judge took some time to consider the follow-up request but ruled during the afternoon session that Peterson could ditch his tracking device too.
Peterson, 30, sat at a defense table and listened quietly to a flurry of pre-trial motions while dressed in a cream suit with a black plaid design. He had been placed on house arrest in October after Judge Herriford received a sealed bail revocation motion from prosecutors following allegations the rapper assaulted musician August Alsina in Chicago in September.
Defense lawyer George G. Mgdesyan told the court Monday that his client never attempted to bribe or intimidate anyone, despite Megan telling authorities that Peterson apologized, offered her money, and begged her to stay quiet in the aftermath of the shooting because he purportedly was on probation at the time.
“She says that my client told her to lie and offered her money because he’s on probation and didn’t want to get arrested. My client has never been on probation,” Mgdesyan argued Monday as he pressed for his client’s release and pushed back on continued GPS monitoring.
“If he’s required to have a monitor on his ankle in front of jurors, I think it’s just punitive. It doesn’t serve any purpose. If he’s going to dissuade a witness, all probation is going to know is where he is. It doesn’t mean he can’t meet with that person,” he said.
While arguing further motions later in the day, the lawyer also told the court that reality TV stars Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner’s boyfriend Corey Gamble were on the defense’s witness list because they were present at Kylie’s house for the pool party that led up to the July 12, 2020 shooting.
“The argument, everything started there,” Mgdesyan told Rolling Stone after the hearing, referring to Kylie’s mansion. He said including Jenner and Gamble on the list wasn’t a guarantee he would attempt to haul them into court, but he said Jenner’s testimony in particular could provide important context about “how this incident began.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone for a cover story earlier this year, Megan said the other woman with her during the shooting – her onetime best friend Kelsey Harris – told her after the incident that Peterson offered to invest in her business in exchange for her silence.
Harris was riding in the SUV with Megan and Peterson the night of the alleged firearm assault but has been mysteriously mum leading up to the trial. She appeared at a hearing in September and was ordered to return this month under a subpoena from prosecutors.
Peterson, 30, was formally charged in late 2020 with one count of assaulting Megan with a semiautomatic firearm in a manner that “personally inflicted great bodily injury” and one count of carrying a concealed, loaded, and unregistered firearm in a vehicle. A protective order bars him from contacting Megan in person or otherwise. He’s facing a maximum sentence of 22 years and eight months in prison if convicted as charged, prosecutors said.
At a preliminary hearing last year, a police investigator said Megan reported hearing Peterson yell “Dance, bitch” as the rapper allegedly opened fire with a semiautomatic 9mm handgun on a residential street in the Hollywood Hills. Before the gunfire erupted, the detective testified, the group purportedly got into a heated verbal exchange inside the vehicle over Peterson’s claim that he had been romantic with Megan behind Harris’ back.
“(Megan) observed Mr. Peterson holding a firearm, and then she observed him start to shoot,” LAPD Detective Ryan Stogner testified. “Megan immediately felt pain to her feet, observed blood, fell to the ground, and then crawled to an adjacent driveway of a residence…She described her injuries as bleeding profusely.”
During an emotional sit-down interview with CBS News’ Gayle King that aired last April, Megan described the incident on camera for the first time.
“So I get out of the car, and it’s like everything happens so fast. And all I hear is this man screaming. And he said, ‘Dance, bitch.’ And he started shooting. And I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, he shot a couple of times. And I was so scared,” she told King.
“He is standing up over the window shooting. And I didn’t even want to move. I didn’t want to move too quick… If I take the wrong step, I don’t know if he’s gonna shoot something that’s, like, super important. I don’t know if he could shoot me and kill me… I was really scared ’cause I had never been shot at before,” she said.
Peterson denies shooting Megan and maintains his innocence in the case.
“We’re confident the truth will come out. It’s been two years, and we’re confident,” Mgdesyan told Rolling Stone on Monday. “He should never have been on house arrest to begin with. It’s punitive. Now that we’re in trial, he needs to be part of the preparation.”
Opening statements in the likely 10-day trial are currently due to begin on Dec. 12. Megan, whose legal name is Megan Peet, is expected to testify.
Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier this year, the “Savage” rapper was adamant she will not back down.
“I want him to go to jail,” she said. “I want him to go under the jail.”
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