Tory Lanez is still recovering from a brutal prison stabbing and his team has accused TMZ of promoting a false narrative by airing an interview with the man who attacked him.
The artist’s spokesperson, Diana London, blasted the outlet for giving airtime to Santino Casio, the inmate who stabbed Lanez 14 times on May 13 inside the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.
Casio, who’s serving a life sentence for murder, claimed in a phone interview with TMZ that he acted in self-defense after allegedly hearing Lanez had put a bounty on his head.
London called the interview irresponsible and accused TMZ of enabling a convicted killer to spread “hearsay” while Lanez was hospitalized with collapsed lungs.
“TMZ, of all people, give this disgusting, vile human being a platform to spew those lies when this man (Tory), at that point, [was] in a bed in the hospital fighting for his life,” London said. “And we have to defend, instead of talking about the well-being of this man who’s innocent already and who is a victim of many people in the system who railroaded this guy.”
Casio told TMZ he and Tory Lanez had been on good terms before things escalated. He claimed Lanez showed him a weapon and threatened him, prompting the stabbing.
He also said he was stabbed in the leg during the altercation, which he used to support his self-defense claim. London dismissed the idea that Lanez had any motive to provoke violence, especially with his legal team working on his release.
“Why in the hell would Tory want to kill someone when he literally could be pardoned or get out of prison?” she said. “He has everything to lose at this point.”
Tory Lanez is serving a 10-year sentence after being convicted in 2022 for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in both feet following a Hollywood Hills party.
His team has continued to argue his innocence, pointing to inconsistencies in the case and comparing it to wrongful convictions like the Central Park Five.
“Tory voluntarily gave his DNA,” London said. “Because they were like, would you come in and do a swab? And he was like, yeah, absolutely, because he knew that his fingerprints weren’t on that gun. It wasn’t his gun.”
Last month, Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna demanded freedom for Tory Lanez and urged California Governor Gavin Newsom to reexamine the 2020 incident.
Tory Lanez’s team also launched a website, 36hourslater.com, that claimed to present new material proving his innocence. Megan Thee Stallion’s attorney, Alex Spiro, dismissed the website as a PR stunt to sway public opinion.
“Tory Lanez’s team can’t keep a story straight,” Spiro said. “Last week, they argued that Kelsey Harris shot Megan and now, they’re claiming that Megan only stepped on glass. They continue to rehash old evidence from trial and re-package it as new information to desperately sway public opinion.
“There was no new evidence displayed today, simply a sad attempt from Tory’s team to copy our presentation format to peddle misinformation.”
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