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Tory Lanez was reportedly handcuffed in a downtown Los Angeles court and taken into custody on Tuesday for violating a pre-trial protective order. This comes in relation to his ongoing felony assault case for allegedly shooting Megan Thee Stallion in her feet in 2020.
Reports suggest that Lanez defied court orders that prohibited him from “contacting or harassing” Stallion or sharing any ongoing information about the case with outside parties.
Prosecutors accused the rapper of revealing inside information to YouTuber DJ Akademiks, prompting the latter to tweet about the case in February.
Following the latest hearing, Judge David Herriford ordered Lanez to be kept in custody and set his bail at $350,000. The Say It singer spent five hours in custody before being released on bail. He reportedly drove off in his Lamborghini after telling Rolling Stone that he felt “amazing” about the situation.
A look into Tory Lanez x Megan Thee Stallion tweet controversy
On February 23, prior to Tory Lanez’s pre-trial hearing, YouTuber and podcaster DJ Akademiks claimed on Twitter that the rapper’s DNA was not found in the weapon used in Megan Thee Stallion’s case. In a now-deleted tweet, he wrote:
“Breaking: It was revealed in court few moments ago that Tory Lanez DNA WAS NOT found on the weapon in the Meg Thee Stallion case.”
In a follow-up tweet, the YouTuber mentioned that the official documents revealed the findings related to the shooting were “inconclusive”:
“I saw this doc myself… it literally says it was inconclusive in finding Tory DNA on the gun or magazine.”
Megan Thee Stallion immediately addressed the claim on social media and accused Akademiks and Lanez of spreading “false narratives” about the case. She wrote on Instagram at the time:
“Y’all got breaking news 15 minutes before court started and nobody has even been called in yet? Y’all tryna win a social media campaign this is my real life! Y’all tryna get retweets spreading false narratives!”
Meanwhile, Lanez joined the online drama and allegedly made indirect tweets to Stallion, saying:
As per Rolling Stone, in a now-deleted tweet, the rapper also wrote, “Ak is telling no lies.” However, in the latest hearing, Lanez’s lawyer Shawn Holley argued that her client did not provide any information about the case to DJ Akademiks, whose tweet was deemed factually wrong:
“What he said is incorrect. What he (DJ Akademiks) said is that the DNA was not found on the weapon. And in fact, the swab of the gun indicates ‘inconclusive,’ that there were four contributors. If he had seen this document, he presumably would have got it right.”
Holley also dubbed the tweets as “chatter in a medium that is almost inherently unreliable.” Meanwhile, Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta said that Lanez’s response to the tweets made by DJ Akademiks was part of his aim of “getting ahead and manipulating the narrative.”
Prosecutors reportedly requested that the court hold Tory Lanez without bail until trial or set his bail to $5 million. Judge Herriford rejected the request, saying that the measures were “extreme.” However, he raised Lanez’s bail from $250,000 to $350,000:
“The court cannot conclude the defendant distributed anything, however it does appear that he violated the order that prohibits him from making any statements regarding discovery.”
Lanez was initially ordered to pay $250,000 for bail in August 2021 after violating his restraining order by performing right after Megan Thee Stallion at the Rolling Loud Festival in Miami.
What happened between Megan Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez?
Tory Lanez allegedly shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot on July 12, 2020, outside a Hollywood Hills mansion following Kylie Jenner’s party. The Savage hitmaker initially said she injured her feet with broken glass but later revealed she was a “victim of shooting.”
She directly accused Lanez of shooting her during an Instagram live and said she was scared to report the incident to the police because of the ongoing political situation involving police officers:
“Yes, this n**** Tory shot me. I didn’t get cut by no glass. When the police came because the neighbors called the police I was scared. All this s**t going on with the police… I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want the police to shoot me cause there’s a n**** with a gun in the car with me.”
During the December 2021 preliminary hearing, Detective Ryan Stogner testified that Lanez allegedly shot Stallion’s feet with a semiautomatic 9mm handgun during an argument after departing Kylie Jenner’s party.
However, Tory Lanez pled not guilty to the charges in November 2020 and has continued to deny all the charges. Following his recent bail, the rapper has been asked to refrain from mentioning “the complaining witness in this case on any social media.”
Lanez is reportedly scheduled to appear in court on June 9 for a pre-trial hearing and is supposedly set to go on trial on September 14.
