LOS ANGELES — Four years after a jury convicted Tory Lanez of shooting Megan Thee Stallion, the prosecutor who tried him put in writing what his lawyers had argued for months. “Bullet fragments were never found after hospital removed them from Meg,” Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta texted on Oct. 28, 2024. “Unclear if hospital misplaced.”
The message was not sent to the defense. It went to Mari Henderson, a lawyer for Megan Thee Stallion at Quinn Emanuel, Roc Nation’s and Jay-Z’s law firm, home of controversial attorney Alex Spiro. It is now Exhibit 3 to a 104-page habeas corpus petition filed Aug. 21 in the California Court of Appeal, case B356717. The filing went unnoticed until the X account ComeWithFacts spotted the case number on the docket and bought the documents.
“Evidence,” Never Produced in the Criminal Case
Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, is serving 10 years at California Men’s Colony. His direct appeal was denied Nov. 12, 2025, and the California Supreme Court declined review in February. When two earlier habeas petitions claimed evidence was missing, the appellate court relied on a sworn Los Angeles Police Department declaration that everything “booked” remained in custody.
The new petition says that declaration sidestepped the question. The defense received about 100 pages of Cedars-Sinai records before trial. Roughly 400 pages surfaced in Megan’s civil suit against blogger Milagro Cooper. Among them is a page titled “Evidence,” never produced in the criminal case, stating that three bags of “foreign bodies” removed from her feet were given to a named hospital security guard.
From there the trail stops. A detective who went to Cedars-Sinai was told the hospital had no fragments, the petition says. The attending surgeon never testified. Megan first told officers she had stepped on broken glass, and the defense was never able to test whether the objects were bullet fragments, “glass, or another material.”
Two experts retained by Lanez’s lawyers reviewed both sets of records. An emergency physician found an orthopedic note that contradicts multiple radiology reports. A nurse who specializes in electronic records counted more than 60 irregularities and said only the hospital’s audit trail can show who changed what. The Superior Court summarily denied a related petition June 22 and quashed subpoenas to the LAPD and Cedars-Sinai.
“I Have Roc Contact If Issues”
The texts show more than a stray admission. After Ta’s answer, her trial partner, Deputy District Attorney Alex Bott, wrote of Lanez’s lawyers: “They should be sanctioned for making blatantly false claims to the court.” Henderson replied, “We want to pursue civil suits against them sick of the lies.”
Two days later Henderson invited both prosecutors to the premiere of Megan’s documentary at the TCL Chinese Theatre, writing that “Meg and Des would love it if you came” and that tickets were at will call: “I have Roc contact if issues.” Bott answered, “I’d love to come.” Ta declined, citing plans. In November, Henderson told Ta that “given your advice we are starting to put together a civil RO,” and Ta pointed her to the difference between a harassment order and a domestic violence order. Megan obtained a restraining order against Lanez in January 2025.
Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s Scandal Ridden Company
“Roc” appears to be reference to Roc Nation, Shawn Carter’s (Jay-Z) and Live Nation’s scandal ridden entertainment company. Roc Nation has been sued civilly for racketeering, and other acts. Roc’s CEO Desiree Perez is being sued by her own daughter for conspiracy and allegedly having her locked in psychiatric and addiction facilities on false pretenses. Roc Nation and Megan Thee Stallion are also being sued for sexual harassment by a former photographer, Emilio Garcia.
Roc Nation’s role in Megan Thee Stallion’s affairs is now a matter of judicial record. On Aug. 7, U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods ruled that a jury could find the company jointly employed her former photographer, Emilio Garcia, because it exercised “a high degree of control” over his schedule, pay and work. It undercuts the picture of Roc Nation as a hands-off manager, and it gives some weight to what Tory Lanez’s family has long argued, that the company is deeply involved in running her business. That lawsuit is currently scheduled for a jury trial in 2027.
The District Attorney’s Conflict of Interest
Prosecutors are supposed to represent the public, not the victim, so an invitation from the victim’s lawyers to a private film premiere, with tickets waiting at will call and free concessions, should have been declined by both of them. Instead, the texts show Deputy District Attorney Alex Bott replying “I’d love to come” two days after discussing Lanez’s pending challenge with the same lawyer, which creates at minimum the appearance that the office handling his post-conviction case was socially aligned with one side of it.
Section 11.13.01 of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Legal Policies Manual, current edition dated Feb. 23, 2026, says: “Deputies shall always avoid situations that might give rise to an actual or apparent conflict of interest.” It defines an apparent conflict as one where “the appearance of a conflict might undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.” A deputy who thinks one may exist must report it up the chain to the office’s Conflict of Interest Designee. A prosecutor attending the victim’s private premiere, at her lawyers’ invitation, while the defendant’s writ was pending fits that description. Whether Alex Bott reported it is unknown.
Alex Spiro’s Involvement
The petition accuses no one at Quinn Emanuel of wrongdoing and never mentions Spiro. But Lanez’s family has blamed him since the verdict. His father has called Spiro the architect of a campaign to turn his son into a monster, as we previously reported after Lanez was stabbed 14 times in prison last year. Spiro has answered that Lanez was convicted on overwhelming evidence, including his own admission, and that the district attorney, not Roc Nation, prosecuted the case.
Page 56 of the habeas petition is a page of the LAPD follow-up report, DR# 20-0612515. It shows:
- The detective’s first interview with Megan was at 5 a.m. on July 16, 2020, as a conference call with “her attorney (Alex Spiro), and her manager (Desiree Perez).” The Roc Nation CEO was on the line for the victim’s first police statement.
- Spiro supplied the detective with Kelsey Harris’ contact details and identified Harris and Jaquan Smith as eyewitnesses.
- An officer at the hospital was told the injury was a cut from glass, and a doctor called it consistent with stepping on glass. X-rays came after police left.
- Detective Eberhardt was told by Cedars-Sinai records that there were no “bullet slugs or evidence awaiting pick up.”
- The stop was “near 1841 N Nichols Canyon Rd,” and Megan said the shooter stood “in the threshold of the passenger door.”
This puts Spiro and Desiree Perez in the case four days after the shooting.
Jaquan Smith later came forward and stated that he saw Kelsey Harris with the gun the night of the shooting.
Holley: The Lawyer Lanez Says Sold Him Out
Lanez’s first attorney was Shawn Chapman Holley. In an October 2024 State Bar complaint, he accused her of hiding ties to Roc Nation, pressing him to plead guilty, telling his DNA expert not to fully test the gun and abandoning him when he refused a deal. Holley’s lawyer said she “has no relationship whatsoever with Roc Nation” and that the bar had already rejected the same claims.
At the preliminary hearing, it was Holley who got a detective to concede under oath that the fragments “can’t be located.”
Holley has been (and may still be) Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs attorney. Holley and her firm, Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir, appear as counsel in Doe v. Combs, No. 1:23-cv-10628, the December 2023 suit in the Southern District of New York. She also spoke for Combs publicly in 2024, saying his side had “overwhelming, indisputable proof” that Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones’ claims were lies. The specific incident referred to is an alleged shooting by Sean Combs, at Chalice Recording Studios on September 12, 2022 in Los Angeles. Jones claims Combs shot a man inside the studio.
Holley is also the Kardashian-Jenner family’s longtime lawyer, and the night of the shooting began at Kylie Jenner’s house. Her firm bio and profiles list Kim Kardashian among her clients. The petition and the LAPD report both say the group left a party at Jenner’s home. That made Jenner a potential witness in a case where Holley was defending the accused.
Currently, Alex Spiro is representing both Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner against Ray-J, for defamation over allegations of racketeering.
That overlap raises a conflict question Holley has never publicly answered, because the night of the shooting began at Kylie Jenner’s home, which made a member of her client family a potential witness in the case she was defending. Did she tell Lanez about her work for the family, and did he waive it?
Most famously, Holley came up under Johnnie Cochran and worked on the O.J. Simpson defense. The case was riddled with accusations of misconduct and alleged tampering of L.A.P.D. evidence.
The Shooting Timeline
Megan Thee Stallion was shot at about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 12, 2020, on the 1800 block of Nichols Canyon Road in the Hollywood Hills. The LAPD report in the habeas petition places it “near 1841 N Nichols Canyon Rd.”
The timeline around it, from the records we’ve gathered:
About 4:22 a.m. A neighbor’s Nest camera clip carries this timestamp. It is likely the recording whose audio captured the gunfire.
About 4:30 a.m. The group leaves a party at Kylie Jenner’s home in a black Cadillac Escalade. An argument starts, Megan gets out, and shots are fired.
4:34 a.m. LAPD stops the SUV, per the body-camera timestamps.
About 2:47 p.m. Dr. Milton Little collects three “foreign body” specimens at Cedars-Sinai, per the hospital’s evidence page.
July 16, 2020. Megan first tells police she was shot, in the 5 a.m. conference call that included Alex Spiro and Desiree Perez.
Alex Spiro’s Tumultuous Record
Spiro has drawn scrutiny of his own. A Texas plaintiff sought sanctions in 2024 over Spiro’s unlicensed appearance at Elon Musk’s deposition. A judge denied the motion. The New York Post reported he flashed an old prosecutor’s badge claiming to be part of the “homicide bureau” when no such department existed. A Harvey Weinstein accuser said he obtained her evidence under false pretenses. And Justice Department files show Steve Bannon recommending him to Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.
Lanez is asking the Court of Appeal to order the state to account for the “collection, transfer, booking, testing, preservation, disposition, and present location” of the three bags. The court has not yet acted.
Sources: In re Daystar Peterson, petition for writ of habeas corpus and exhibits, Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., Div. 3, No. B356717, filed Aug. 21, 2026; ComeWithFacts; NBC News; Rolling Stone; TMZ; Paul Smith’s reporting at Shockya.
Related coverage
- New evidence in the Tory Lanez case puts Alex Spiro in the hot seat
- Musk’s lawyer threatens Alex Gibney. Alex Spiro’s own record is a story, too.
- New Jeffrey Epstein files name Alex Spiro
This is an opinion article.