‘They were trying to kill her’ – Eyewitness says he saw Megan Thee Stallion’s ex-assistant, Tory Lanez and his driver beating the female rapper
An eyewitness in Tory Lanez’s trial told the court he saw the singer, his driver, and Megan Thee Stallion’s assistant Kelsey Harris kick and punch the female rapper as she lay on the ground wounded from gunshots.
Sean Kelly, whose Hollywood Hills home overlooks the spot where the shooting occurred in July 2020, took the stand on Tuesday telling jurors that he thought the trio ‘were trying to kill her.’
He told the court Lanez was screaming ‘a torrent of abuse’ at Megan, using words like ‘motherf***er’ and the n-word.
‘He was going crazy. He was really agitated,’ added Kelly, whose hour of dramatic testimony as a defense witness was often contradictory, depending on whether it was the prosecution or defense asking the questions.
He told the court Lanez ‘was firing everywhere, four or five times,’ but also said he thought ‘the girl’ (Kelsey Harris) had ‘fired the first shot.’
Lanez, 30, pleaded not guilty to three felony charges of assaulting Megan with a semiautomatic firearm, carrying a concealed gun in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence at the criminal court in downtown Los Angeles. The Canadian musician, whose real name is Daystar Peterson could spend up to 18 years in prison if convicted of all three felonies, plus possible deportation.
In her testimony last week, Megan, 27, told the jury of seven women and five men that she and Lanez had gone to a pool party on July 12, 2020, at the home of Kylie Jenner – who may be called as defense witness – and were in his SUV in the Hollywood Hills with Megan’s assistant and best friend, Kelsey Harris, when an argument erupted.
Megan, whose real name is Megan Pete, asked the driver stop the car and she got out – which was when she said Lanez yelled ‘Dance b***h’ and fired a gun several times at her, injuring her feet so seriously that she needed surgery.
She also testified that Lanez offered her and Harris a million dollars to keep quiet about the shooting.
Lanez, who is free on $350,000 bail, later apologized to her, saying he was drunk at the time of the shooting.
Meanwhile, his defense team has been pushing the theory that it wasn’t Lanez but Harris who fired the gun in a fit of jealousy and anger at Megan when she found out the singer had ‘backstabbed’ her by sleeping with Lanez, who Kelsey had a crush on.
Kelly told the jury Tuesday that he was woken up at about 4:30am by the sound of shouting and loud voices in the driveway outside his home.
He got up to investigate, going out on the balcony of his second-floor bedroom, and two girls fighting outside a car.
‘They were pulling hair and hitting each other. It was quite violent,’ he said.
The ‘taller guy’ (Lanez’s driver) got out of the car and walked around to the girls to try to separate them, Kelly told the court.
‘Then I heard what I though was fireworks…..I saw a muzzle flash about the same time the smaller gentleman (Lanez who is 5ft 3in) got out off the car.’
He said the first muzzle flash was ‘near the girls’ but when defense attorney George Mgdesyan asked him: ‘Who had the gun?’ Kelly said: ‘I never saw a gun. I just saw flashes.’
‘Where did you see the flashes come from?’ asked the lawyer. ‘The girl (Harris),’ said Kelly.
‘Did you at any point hear anyone say, ‘Dance b***h’? Kelly was asked, answering ‘No.’
Mgdesyan asked Kelly several times, ‘after you saw the female shoot, did you see the smaller man appear to try to take the gun from her.’
Kelly kept pointing out that everything was happening very fast, and in a sarcastic answer that caused titters in the packed courtroom, he said: ‘It’s not like he went, ‘Excuse me, can I have the gun, it’s my turn.”
Pressed by Mgdesyan, he added that he believed the girl (Harris) ‘fired the first shot….Then I believe he (Lanez) started shooting.’
After the shooting, Kelly said, he saw Megan ‘crawling and stumbling’ into the nearby driveway and ‘the three of them (Lanez, Harris and Lanez’s driver) were beating her.
‘She was curled up on the ground in a fetal position. They were all beating her, punching and kicking her…. It appeared to me that they were trying to kill her.’
When Lanez’s driver said that the police were on the way, he went on, ‘They picked her up and looked like they were going to thrown her in the (nearby creek).
‘They dragged her across the street, put her in the car and took off.’
Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Alex Bott, Kelly said: ‘I saw the muzzle flash when the smaller gentleman (Lanez) got out of the car.
‘He was firing everywhere – four or five shots.
‘The short guy came out of the car and then shot the girl. She was kicking all the time. She fell into the middle of the road.’
Kelly told Bott that after she was shot, she ‘crawled away and rolled into a ball. And Lanez was screaming a ‘torrent of abuse at her, including words like ‘mother****er, and n****r.
‘He was going crazy. He was really agitated,’ he added.
Later in the day Mgdesyan called LAPD Detective Ryan Stogner – lead detective on the Lanez case – to the witness stand Tuesday to testify about an interview he had with eye witness Kelly a few days after the shooting.
‘Did (Kelly) tell you that he saw my client (Lanez) holding a gun, shooting a gun….? ‘No,’ answered Det. Stogner.
When Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta then asked him if Kelly told him that he saw a female shoot a gun or hold a gun, his answer was the same – ‘No.’
Stogner also interviewed Megan after the shooting and when Ta asked him, ‘Who did she say shot her?’ the detective replied, ‘Her friend Tory Lanez.’
And when Ta asked Stogner if Megan had also told him that Lanez had offered her $1 million to keep quiet about the incident, he answered, ‘Yes.’
The prosecution and defense sparred Tuesday about Megan telling the DA that Lanez told her he was already ‘on probation’ at the time of the shooting in July 2020.
DDA Ta told the court that Lanez was involved in a criminal case in Florida in 2017 that resulted in him being placed in a ‘diversion’ program – which usually means an offender avoids jail or probation if he completes a less punitive diversionary course.
‘That’s not probation,’ objected Mgdesyan, who then went on to ask Detective Stogner, ‘Do you have any evidence that in 2020 my client was on probation? ‘No,’ he responded, also agreeing that he had no evidence that Lanez had ‘ever’ been on probation.
Prosecutors recalled LAPD criminalist and DNA expert Randy Zepeda who last week testified that results of tests looking for Lanez’ DNA on the gun that shot Megan were ‘inconclusive’ but the test results on the gun’s magazine showed none of Lanez’ DNA.
Asked if he would expect there to be less DNA on the gun if it had been wiped after the shooting – or if the person handling the weapon had recently been in a chlorinated swimming poos (as Lanez had, in Kylie Jenner’s pool) – Zepeda said ‘yes’.
When Ta asked him, ‘Does that mean that (Lanez) did not fire the gun? ‘No,’ he responded.
Mgdesyan challenged with his own questions, ‘Is there any evidence that my client’s DNA was on the gun,’ he asked. ‘No,’ said Zepeda.
When he was then asked, ‘Do you have any evidence the gun was wiped,’ agin he responded, ‘No.’
At the end of Tuesday’s trial session, DDA Bott complained to Judge Herriford that his opposing defense counsel, Mgdesyan had acting ‘aggressively,’ calling him an ‘idiot and a clown’ and ‘muttering ‘obscenities under his breath’.