Following a sworn statement from Tory Lanez’s bodyguard earlier this week that stated he did not see who fired the gun in the 2020 shooting, Lanez and his legal team are petitioning the court for a re-sentencing.
Currently being held at a California prison, Lanez has allegedly hired new council and submitted this petition to reassess his 10-year sentence. The petition allegedly contains multiple arguments, one being that Lanez has suffered from “childhood trauma,” which should be considered in this case. Another argument claims that he faces discrimination because of his Canadian background and the threat of deportation.
The petition was filed after Lanez’s bodyguard, Jaquan Smith, filed a sworn statement earlier this week in regards to the July 2020 shooting. In his statement, Smith said that he “did not see who shot the weapon” and claimed that he witnessed Tory attempting to wrestle the gun from Megan Thee Stallion’s former assistant, Kelsey Harris, before he heard the shots go off.
Lanez’s appeal and petition will likely be reviewed by the court at the same time, with an opening brief scheduled for December 26th, but it is unlikely that the court will truly rule on either for multiple months. An LA attorney, David Zarmi, reviewed the petition for ‘Legal Affairs and Trials’ as an uninvolved third party; Zarmi deduced that “it seems unlikely the court would accept this.”
Zarmi explained: “This would ordinarily be an ineffective assistance of counsel argument, which they don’t raise in a way that the Court would consider it, and which would normally be accompanied by a declaration for trial counsel describing his motives. They are being creative by arguing that because nobody bothered to check what Smith’s testimony would be before trial counsel stipulated that Smith would not testify. However, there is no declaration attached to indicate that trial counsel did not know what Smith’s testimony would be. Nor is there even a declaration from the defendant. It seems unlike the Court would accept this.”
Despite Smith’s sworn statement, he never testified during the trial. Megan Thee Stallion took to Instagram Live this week to address the statement and Lanez’s attempts to free himself. She told her followers: I know who shot me. I said who shot me, and that’s why the f*ck you in jail.”
Now only time will tell if Lanez and his new legal team will succeed in their appeals and petitions, but based on the opinions of other professionals, it seems unlikely.