Tory Lanez's First Lawyer Instructed Rapper Against Blaming Kelsey Harris for Shooting Megan Thee Stallion, Unsealed Emails Show
June 19 2023, Published 1:00 p.m. ET
Tory Lanez’s first lawyer, Shawn Holley, instructed the rapper against blaming Kelsey Harris for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet in July 2020, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a sudden development to come months after Lanez, 30, was found guilty of shooting Megan in the feet nearly three years ago, a cache of emails between the convicted Canadian rapper and Holley was unsealed this week.
The emails were reportedly unsealed after Lanez’s new lawyers persuaded him to waive his attorney-client privilege, journalist Meghann Cuniff first reported on Monday.
According to the emails obtained and reviewed by Cuniff, Holley rejected Lanez’s idea to persuade jurors that Harris fired the gun that ultimately struck Megan in the feet outside a party in Hollywood Hills on the night of July 12, 2020.
Holley also apparently instructed the embattled rapper to find a new lawyer who would be more comfortable “moving forward with that defense.”
“As we discussed on Saturday, I am not comfortable advancing the ‘Kelsie Defense,’ primarily because I don’t find it to be a viable strategy,” Holley wrote to Lanez in an email dated November 21, 2022.
Meanwhile, another email dated December 18 saw Holley formally withdraw as Lanez’s lawyer after Harris falsely claimed that Holley “was somehow involved in facilitating an arrangement between [Lanez] and [Harris] whereby [Lanez] would finance [Harris’] business (or something like that) in order to curry favor with [Harris], thereby aligning [Lanez] and [Harris’] interests as far as the case was concerned.”
“You and I both know that this never happened,” Holley wrote in December 2022.
“In any event, the fact that these false allegations have been made about me — and that they are now evidence in the case — makes it a conflict (as an ethical/legal matter) for me to continue to represent you and, as a result, I am obligated to withdraw as your attorney,” she added.
Lanez’s new lawyers, Matthew Barhoma and Jose Baez, have since filed a motion for a new trial over their claims that Holley provided “ineffective assistance of counsel” by instructing Lanez not to lie and blame Harris for pulling the trigger before he was convicted for shooting Megan in the feet in December.
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As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Lanez was found guilty of shooting Megan on December 23, 2022 – more than two years after the shooting incident took place outside of Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills mansion on July 12, 2020.
Lanez was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, discharging a firearm with gross negligence, and carrying a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle.
The embattled Canadian rapper faces more than 22 years in prison and potential deportation when he is sentenced on August 7.
