Closing arguments began in the Tory Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion shooting trial Wednesday (Dec. 21).
According to multiple reports, the prosecution urged the jury to find the R&B singer guilty of shooting the Texan rapper. The defense maintained Tory is not the shooter, instead placing the blame on Megan’s now-former friend Kelsey Harris.
“This is a case about a guy who shot a girl, then apologized for it,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott told the jury during his closing argument.
“When Megan insulted his ability as an artist — that’s what set him off that night,” the prosecutor said, referring to Tory Lanez.
Bott also directed the jury to Kelsey Harris’s text to Megan Thee Stallion’s bodyguard saying, “Help/Tory shot me/911.” He called the message critical as it was sent just five minutes after the shooting.
“Is Kelsey Harris some sort of sophisticated criminal mastermind? …framing the defendant within 5 min? Is that a reasonable conclusion?” he questioned.
However, the defense offered a different story to the court. George Mgdesyan, Lanez’s defense attorney, said Kelsey pulled the trigger in a jealous rage after learning that Tory Lanez slept with Megan Thee Stallion.
“This was about jealousy … two women that love a man and found out” that Tory Lanez was intimate with both of them, Mgdesyan continued. He claims Kelsey Harris was the shooter and Tory Lanez was “trying to save” Megan Thee Stallion.
“If Kelsey had no reason to invoke (her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination), do you think this judge would let her invoke?” he questioned. “Why not give her transactional immunity?”
George Mgdesyan will return to the downtown Los Angeles courtroom Thursday morning to conclude his closing, followed by prosecution rebuttal.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tory Lanez declined to testify even though he was on the defense’s witness list. If convicted, he faces up to 22 years and eight months in prison.
