A bodyguard for Megan Thee Stallion is purportedly lacking amid Torey Lanez’s felony assault trial in Los Angeles after he offered a witness assertion implicating the rapper.
“He was set to testify. He’s any individual who’s all the time plugged-in, on the grid, responsive, and as he’s set to testify in a violent crimes case, he goes lacking,” Megan’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, tells Rolling Stone.
In his opening assertion Monday, Deputy District Lawyer Alexander Bott instructed jurors that the bodyguard, Justin Edison, was anticipated to take the stand and say he visited Lanez’s home on July 13, 2020 and heard Lanez confess to being the triggerman in a capturing a day earlier that wounded Megan in each toes.
A supply tells Rolling Stone that Edison gave a previous witness assertion within the high-profile case stating that Lanez, whose authorized identify is Daystar Peterson, walked as much as him on the home and personally apologized for what Lanez described as an alcohol-fueled accident.
Edison — who was not current when the gunfire erupted, however who acquired the panicked textual content from Megan’s former good friend Kelsey Harris stating, “Assist/Tory shot meg/911” — made it clear Lanez was apologizing for firing a weapon, not simply contributing to a battle that preceded the capturing, the supply says.
Edison instructed authorities that Peterson recalled being extremely drunk and firing a number of photographs on the floor earlier than Megan collapsed, the supply says.
Edison and his lawyer didn’t reply Saturday to Rolling Stone’s requests for touch upon his whereabouts or his prior assertion to authorities. Makes an attempt to succeed in Lanez’s protection lawyer weren’t instantly profitable.
Late on Friday, Bott requested Decide David Herriford to launch the “physique attachment” (a sort of warrant) for Edison. An LAPD spokeswoman mentioned Saturday she had no details about a lacking particular person’s investigation associated to Edison.
Peterson is battling three felony expenses within the high-profile case alleging he shot Megan in each toes throughout a drunken assault on a residential avenue within the Hollywood Hills shortly after 4 a.m. on July 12, 2020.
He has pleaded not responsible to assault with a firearm inflicting nice bodily damage, concealing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a car, and the lately added depend of discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
If convicted as charged, the Alone at Promenade rapper is dealing with the potential for 22 years and eight months in jail and subsequent deportation since he’s a citizen of Canada.
Megan, whose full identify is Megan Pete, gave harrowing testimony on the witness stand Tuesday, saying the capturing left her with lasting bodily and emotional accidents.
She vividly recalled turning to see Peterson holding a gun and pointing it at her as he allegedly shouted “Dance Bitch” and the photographs rang out.
Harris additionally took the witness stand for 2 days of tortured testimony throughout which she disavowed key parts of an in depth assertion she gave to prosecutors in September. Harris confirmed she heard the gunshots however recanted her September declare that she watched Peterson fireplace the semiautomatic 9mm handgun 5 occasions over the open door of his Cadillac Escalade.
When Peterson’s protection lawyer, George Mgdesyan, grilled Harris about her September assertion underneath cross-examination, he requested if she was underneath the “impression” that if she instructed prosecutors what they “needed to listen to,” she may very well be “performed with this case.”
Bott later argued to the decide that Mgdesyan’s query impugned the “integrity” of the D.A.’s workplace, and he requested the courtroom to permit your complete recorded September interview to be performed for the jury. The decide granted the request, and jurors heard the 88-minute audio interview on Friday.