Tory Lanez is still facing charges in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting, but new information from his initial defense attorney shows that the Canadian rapper tried to blame Kelsey Harris for shooting her friend’s foot.
Tory Lanez’s initial lawyer, Shawn Holley, eventually talked him out of it, advising that the rapper seek the opinion of another attorney “to move forward with that defense,” according to emails obtained by court reporter Meghann Cuniff.
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Holley, a member of O.J. Simpson’s legal defense team, said the [sic] “Kelsie defense” would not be “viable strategy,” and she expressed not being comfortable with the idea.
“As we discussed on Saturday, I am not comfortable advancing the ‘Kelsie Defense,’ primarily because I don’t find it to be a viable strategy,” Holley wrote to Tory Lanez in an email dated Nov. 21, 2022.
“Tory is like family to me at this point. I’d like to think he feels the same,” she said after the verdict.
Holley formally resigned as Tory Lanez’s lawyer in another email dated December 18 after Harris falsely claimed that Holley “was somehow involved in facilitating an arrangement between [Lanez] and [Harris] whereby [Lanez] would finance [Harris’] business (or something like that) in order to curry favor with [Harris], thereby aligning [Lanez] and [Harris’] interests as far as the case was concerned.”
Tory Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was convicted on Dec. 23, 2022, for shooting and injuring the hip-hop star, whose legal name is Megan Pete, on all three felony charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm, and negligent discharge of a firearm in connection with the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. He was initially set to be sentenced in January, but the sentencing got delayed several times after he obtained new attorneys.
Tory Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was found guilty on all three felony charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm, and negligent discharge of a firearm in connection with the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion in 2020 on Dec. 23, 2022. He was scheduled to be sentenced in January, but the date was pushed out numerous times as he hired new attorneys.
Tory Lanez filed a motion for a new trial in April 2023, claiming that social media posts improperly influenced the jury and that the prosecution withheld material that could have helped his case. The judge denied the motion in June 2023.
Tory Lanez is currently appealing his conviction.
Matthew Barhoma and Jose Baez, the rapper’s new attorneys, have since filed a motion for a new trial, claiming that Holley provided “ineffective assistance of counsel” by instructing Lanez not to lie and to blame Harris for pulling the trigger before he was convicted of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet in December.
When he is sentenced on August 7, the beleaguered Canadian rapper faces more than 22 years in prison and possible deportation.
