On May 8, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford will decide if Tory Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, will be granted a retrial in the case of the Megan Thee Stallion shooting. If denied, Peterson will then face sentencing for three guilty counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, carrying an unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, which could land him in prison for up to 22 years.
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Serving time in jail currently ever since the original trial in late December 2022, Peterson’s official Instagram account @torylanez posted a video of a call he recently made to a member of his team. During the call, he leaves a message for Judge Herriford, where he discusses an independent DNA test he had done on his behalf.
With this new test allegedly clearing him of any wrongdoing, Peterson points blame at Los Angeles district attorneys Kathy Ta and Alexander Bott for employing an inaccurate DNA result in the trial that found him guilty.
“I’ve been incarcerated for almost half a year over a gun that the D.A.’s lied and said I shot,” Peterson said. “In 2021, they demanded I take a DNA test. I took that test with no pushback, delay, or question. Not only because I knew I never shot the gun, but mainly because I was 100% positive I never even touched this gun. In my trial, the verdict of guilty or innocent depended heavily on my DNA results. With the help of LA crime lab, DNA expert Randy Zepeda, D.A. Kathy Ta, and Alex Bott completely manipulated my DNA results and lied to the world, the media, and most importantly, my jury by constantly saying my DNA on the gun was inconclusive. That was an absolute lie.”
Later in the clip, Peterson asserted that his DNA could not have been inconclusive, as Ta and Bott improperly implicated him in possession of the gun used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion.
“(Ta and Bott) went on further to say, ‘Inconclusive means that he cannot be excluded from the gun.’ My new attorney Jose Baez hired one of the best DNA experts in the nation to carefully analyze the same DNA test, the fair and correct way,” he said. “The results came back exactly as I knew the whole time. My DNA is 100% excluded and 100% eliminated from the gun. In other words, it’s physically and scientifically impossible for me to ever have touched or shot this gun. After the correct and careful analyzation of my DNA testing, not only did our expert find my DNA 100% excluded and nonexistent on the gun, but what’s worse, is the invalid and illegal tactics the prosecution chose to obtain the results used to convict me. Based on the fundamentals of my DNA test, the only possible way for the LA crime lab to come up with an inconclusive result would literally be to stop the testing before it finished or completed its final result, which would have and should have shown completely my full exclusion (from) the weapon.”
Accusing the D.A. of lying, Lanez then pleads to Judge Herriford to grant him a retrial.
“In other words, district attorneys Kathy Ta and Alex Bott lied to my jury with false, incorrect, and incomplete DNA results, violating my due process and my 14th amendment rights,” he said. “My faith, my prayers, and my highest hopes go to the honorable Judge Herriford that on May 8, he rules in favor of the United States Supreme Court laws, returning me to my freedom, my family, and most importantly, the justice of a fair trial.”
Recently while discussing a potential retrial or sentencing, Bott actually made a comment about how he hopes to wrap up this case as soon as possible for Megan Thee Stallion’s sake.
“We want to make sure that Megan gets closure as quickly as possible,” he said. “She wants to put an end to this chapter of her life.”
Meg echoed this sentiment in an Elle magazine op-ed from April 18, where she insisted that she is working tirelessly to leave the shooting and its implications in the past.
It’s unclear if Judge Herriford will fully consider Peterson’s independent DNA testing when deciding on a retrial. But, with his new message to the world, it appears that the rapper behind bars is adamant he was framed. Listen to his entire speech below.
Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images
