Drake has called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to grant a pardon to Tory Lanez after the rapper was the victim of a violent stabbing while incarcerated.
Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, 32, was hospitalized last week after being stabbed multiple times by another inmate. Peterson is currently serving a 10-year sentence in a California prison for the 2020 shooting of musician Megan Thee Stallion.
Drake has since responded, posting Friday via his Instagram stories a Change.org petition calling for Lanez’s release, writing “come home soon,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The petition is titled “Pardon Tory Lanez: Urge Governor Newsom to Correct a Deep Injustice” and claims there is “overwhelming evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, missing forensic data and politically motivated sentencing.”
Driving the petition is the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, a Miami-based group connected to prominent conservative legal circles, which calls on Newsom to “grant a full pardon to Tory Lanez” as well as “remove politically motivated sentencing enhancements, order a full and impartial review of the case to ensure no one else is subjected to a similar injustice” and calls for justice to be “rooted in due process, fairness, and truth — not politics.”
Lanez was convicted in December 2022 on multiple charges, including assault with a semiautomatic firearm, in connection with a July 2020 incident that unfolded after a gathering at Kylie Jenner’s home.
Last week, officials identified Santino Casio, 41, who is serving a life sentence for murder, as the suspect involved in the stabbing of Lanez, according to the BBC.
He has since been placed in “restricted housing” pending an investigation into the attack.
Casio was transferred to the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi from the Los Angeles County jail in February 2004.
“He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for second-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder, personal use of a dangerous or deadly weapon, and inflict [sic] great bodily injury,” said a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), according to BBC.
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