Tory Lanez wants $1 million for every one of the 14 stab wounds he took inside a California prison, plus another $10 million for the scars left on his face. Now the man running that prison is telling a federal court none of it was his fault.
Thomas Valdez, warden at the California Correctional Institution, has formally denied wrongdoing in a court filing reviewed by Complex.
He rejects the idea that he or any staff member violated the rapper’s rights, or that any act or omission on their part played a role in the attack.
The lawsuit seeks $100 million in damages on top of those per wound figures. It names Valdez, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and 50 correctional officers.
Lanez claims Valdez broke protocol by housing him alongside Santino Casio, the inmate accused of the stabbing, despite what the suit calls Casio’s “violent history.”
The rapper also argues that staff showed “deliberate indifference to foreseeable violence.” According to the complaint, officers were nowhere to be found when the attack happened.
Casio’s account paints a very different picture. He allegedly said in a phone call that he had heard rumors Lanez was plotting to hurt him, and that he went after the rapper after seeing him carrying a weapon in his pocket.
Casio also allegedly said he never meant to kill Lanez. That version of events hasn’t been tested in court, and nothing in the filing suggests Lanez’s side accepts it.
The state is fighting on a separate front too. In July, the office of California attorney general Rob Bonta filed a motion to dismiss the claims against the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, arguing Lanez can’t sue the agency under the federal law cited in his complaint.
That motion also leans on the 11th Amendment, which the state says grants it immunity from this kind of suit. If a judge agrees, Lanez could be left pursuing the warden and individual officers rather than the department itself.
For anyone just catching up, Lanez, born Daystar Peterson, is serving a 10 year sentence after a jury convicted him in December 2022 of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in 2020.
He was sentenced in August 2023 and was being held at the Tehachapi facility when the stabbing happened in May 2025.
The attack made headlines at the time, with his team saying he suffered collapsed lungs and needed hospital treatment.
His legal life outside the cell block has stayed busy as well, with Complex recently reporting that his divorce case was dismissed after two years of stalled proceedings.
For now, the warden’s denial sets up a direct clash over what prison staff knew about Casio and when they knew it.
The court still has to rule on the state’s bid to knock the department out of the case, and that decision will shape how much of this lawsuit is left standing.
