Our 2023 version of this story said Tory Lanez would spend “over 20 years in prison” and that a Supreme Court had turned him down. Neither was true then. The real numbers are smaller, the real courts are different, and the story did not end at sentencing: since then there has been a lost appeal, a refusal from California’s highest court, a prison stabbing and a $100 million lawsuit. Here is the record, with receipts.
What happened in July 2020
In the early hours of July 12, 2020, Megan Thee Stallion was shot in both feet after an argument in an SUV in the Hollywood Hills. She later named Lanez as the shooter on Instagram. He was charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney in October 2020, which matters for the record: this was a criminal case brought by the state, not a lawsuit Megan filed, as our old version claimed.
Her former friend Kelsey Harris was also in the car and testified at the trial. Lanez pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence ever since. In September 2020 he released the album Daystar, which addressed the allegations directly and was widely criticized for it. My view: answering a felony charge with a diss track is a strategy that looks better in the studio than in a courtroom transcript.
The verdict and the ten years
The jury convicted Lanez in December 2022 on three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic firearm, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. A motion for a new trial was denied in 2023 by the trial judge, not by any Supreme Court.
On August 8, 2023, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Herriford sentenced him to 10 years. Prosecutors had asked for 13; the defense asked for probation or three years. A day earlier, Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta read Megan’s written statement in court: “Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace.” She added: “Slowly but surely, I’m healing and coming back, but I will never be the same.”
Lanez told the court that Megan was “someone I still care for dearly to this day” and that “a common misconception is that I have no remorse, which is not true.” The judge’s summary was shorter: “Actions have consequences, and there are no winners in this case.” I have read a lot of sentencing remarks, and that one is hard to improve on.
Two appeals, two losses
After sentencing, Lanez posted on Instagram: “Regardless of how they try to spin my words, I have always maintained my innocence and I always will.” His lawyers followed through. Two habeas petitions failed first. Then, on November 12, 2025, a three-judge panel of California’s Second District Court of Appeal affirmed all three convictions, rejecting the claims of prosecutorial misconduct and trial error. The panel called the testimony “more than sufficient to support the jury’s finding that Peterson personally inflicted great bodily injury.”
On February 25, 2026, the California Supreme Court declined to review the case. That was the first time a Supreme Court actually entered this story, three years after our old article put one there. The state-court route is now closed. Reports put his parole eligibility in August 2029; that is a date for a hearing, not a release date.
The stabbing and the $100 million lawsuit
On May 12, 2025, Lanez was stabbed by another inmate, Santino Casio, at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi. He suffered a collapsed lung and was airlifted to a hospital. He was later moved to the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo.
In April 2026 he filed a federal lawsuit seeking $100 million from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the warden and guards. The complaint says he was stabbed 16 times, that housing him with Casio “was known or should have been a known danger”, that officers were slow to respond, and that his songbooks of unpublished lyrics were seized and never returned. The department said it does not comment on pending litigation.
In court it did comment. In an October 7, 2026 filing for acting warden T. Valdez, the state argued that Lanez “consented to his prison housing classification and assignment”, that Casio’s attack was a “superseding, intervening cause”, and that the warden has qualified immunity. Nobody disputes that the stabbing happened. Whether a prisoner can meaningfully “consent” to a cell assignment is a question I would like to hear a judge answer out loud.
Megan’s own court wins
The fallout followed Megan into other courtrooms. On December 1, 2025, a Miami federal jury found blogger Milagro Gramz (Milagro Cooper), who had pushed Lanez’s side of the story online, liable for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and promoting a sexually explicit deepfake video of Megan. Jurors awarded $75,000; the judge later reduced the final judgment to $59,000 after dismissing the defamation count on a procedural rule for media defendants. The amount is small. The verdict is not.
@torylanez Mix the bathing ape with the LANVIN …. Been had ya hoe but I ain’t never been a “ Has been “ – Tory Lanez ……. ALBUM ON THE WAY 🎑
My read
Six years after a car ride in the Hollywood Hills, every court that has looked at the shooting has reached the same answer, and the only open case now is about what happened to Lanez inside prison. He can be wrongly endangered in custody and rightly convicted; both can be true at once. As for our old “over 20 years”: the correct number was always ten, and the record deserves the same precision we ask of everyone else.
Sources
- California Courts Newsroom: CA Supreme Court won’t review case of rapper Tory Lanez (Feb 2026)
- Entertainment Tonight: Tory Lanez Found Guilty in Megan Thee Stallion Shooting Trial
- Tory Lanez on Instagram
- ET: Tory Lanez sentenced to 10 years (Aug 2023)
- ET: Lanez’s Instagram statement after sentencing
- AP via NY1: Court denies Tory Lanez’s appeal (12 Nov 2025)
- FOX 11 LA: Lanez fails to overturn conviction
- XXL: California Supreme Court rejects review
- AP via NY1: Tory Lanez sues California prison system for $100 million (18 Apr 2026)
- DancehallMag: Prison officials’ answer to the lawsuit (11 Oct 2026)
- Rolling Stone: Megan Thee Stallion wins trial against Milagro Gramz (Dec 2025)
