Tory Lanez to be deposed in prison as Megan's lawsuit against blogger proceeds
A spokesman for Lanez indicated he may not cooperate with the deposition, which a federal judge in Florida authorized on Monday.
Lawyers for rapper Megan Thee Stallion will question Tory Lanez under oath in prison as part of their defamation and cyberstalking lawsuit against an online commentator.
A federal judge in Florida on Monday authorized Megan’s counsel to depose Lanez from the prison in Tehachapi, California, where he currently resides, after they said they need to “fully investigate” his relationship with YouTuber and social media commentator Milagro Cooper.
Lanez, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan and injuring her feet, can be deposed remotely through video “or as otherwise arranged with the California Correctional Institution,” according to the order signed by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, who is the chief judge in the Miami-based Southern District of Florida.
Megan’s lawyers want to question Lanez under oath not only about his connections to Cooper but “the bases” for Cooper’s comments about Megan over the years. It will be the first time they’ve spoken to him since he fired five rounds at Megan early on July 12, 2020, after they left a party at reality star Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home.
A Los Angeles County jury in December 2022 convicted Lanez of first-degree assault with a semi-automatic firearm, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and possession of an unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and a judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison in August 2023. His appeal is fully briefed and awaiting action from the California Court of Appeal’s 2nd District in Los Angeles.
Legal name Daystar Peterson, the 32-year-old rapper is not a defendant in Megan’s lawsuit against Cooper, but the complaint alleges Cooper is his “longtime mouthpiece.” The case is separate from a civil restraining order that Megan obtained against Lanez in Los Angeles County Superior Court in January and alleges Cooper is a paid surrogate of Lanez who maliciously harasses Megan online, including by promoting a video of her made with artificial intelligence.
In February, Judge Altonaga ruled that Megan’s claims against Cooper “extend far beyond mere negligence — they paint a picture of an intentional campaign to destroy her reputation.”
She rejected Cooper’s dismissal motion and said her statements that Megan alleges defamed her “go beyond casual name-calling.”
“Given that a reasonable person could interpret Defendant’s statements as accusations of perjury, mental incapacity, and alcoholism, the Court finds they are actionable as defamation per se,” the judge wrote.
The 25-page order clears the way for a jury trial currently scheduled for Sept. 8 in Miami. Lawyers for Cooper and Megan, legal name Megan Pete, can take depositions and seek discovery as they prepare for trial and possibly negotiate a settlement.
“Good luck trying to get him to 'testify'“
Megan’s lawyers said on Monday that “counsel for Ms. Cooper and Mr. Peterson do not oppose this request” for a deposition order, but Lanez’s spokesman Ceasar McDowell of the legal services group Unite The People said “to imply UTP is going along with Megan’s wishes, or somehow being manipulated into going along, is simply wrong.”
McDowell said Megan’s lawyers “continue to try and give the appearance their case against Milagro Cooper is successfully progressing by giving their ‘supposed mouthpiece’, Meghan Cuniff and all other persons, media or non media, wrong information.”
“Perhaps Meghan Cuniff really does not know what she’s talking about,” according to the statement on Unite The People’s Instagram page.
Unite The People is registered as a not-for-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which means its exempt from paying taxes. Its website says the group’s mission “is to become a pillar of hope in the lives of the many people affected by incarceration, whether it be individuals who are incarcerated or their families.”
McDowell, who is Unite The People’s CEO, said Lanez likely won’t cooperate with Megan’s lawyers.
“If you know Tory Lanez how I do, good luck trying to get him to ‘testify’ to anything, it’s just not what he does ... and he definitely did not ‘agree’ to testify now,” McDowell wrote.
Filed early Monday, the three-page filing from Megan’s lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP requested “leave of the Court for Mr. Peterson to be deposed while incarcerated pursuant to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(a)(2)(B).”
“Counsel for Ms. Cooper and Mr. Peterson do not oppose this request,” according to the request, signed by Daniel Humphrey, a Miami-based associate with Quinn Emanuel.
McDowell said in his Instagram post that Unite The People “is not obligated to produce Tory Lanez for a deposition” because Lanez isn’t part of the case.
“Nor did UTP agree or disagree to a deposition of Mr. Lanez or any other potential witness. By law Megan’s lawyers can depose any person they believe possess useful information to their case.”
McDowell also took issue with my previous reporting about Judge Altonaga’s order rejecting the dismissal motion, saying I “perhaps intentionally” misunderstood that they “forced Megan’s lawyers to change their allegations against Ms. Cooper twice, resulting in them amending their complaint “MULTIPLE TIMES.”
He’s referring to Altonaga’s ruling that Megan’s petition for injunctive relief from cyberstalking lacked “necessary detail” and needed a sworn declaration from Megan instead of a reference to the complaint. If she fixed that, “she has adequately pleaded a claim for cyberstalking under Florida Statute section 784.0485,” the judge said in her Feb. 7 order.
Megan’s lawyers included a seven-page affidavit signed by her with their amended complaint filed Feb. 10, which satisfied the judge’s order.
Cooper’s lawyers filed their answer and affirmative defenses on Feb. 20.
Dismissal rejection rejects Bob Dylan comparison
It was the second time Megan’s lawyers amended their complaint against Cooper.
They filed their first amended complaint on Dec. 10, two weeks after Cooper’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
Judge Altonaga never ruled on the motion. Instead, the amended complaint ditched an invasion of privacy claim and added a defamation claim, along with the cyberstalking, promotion of an altered sexual depiction, intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Cooper’s lawyers filed another motion to strike on Dec. 23. that called Megan’s lawsuit “an attempt to cancel those opinions she disagrees with.”
Signed by Michael Pancier, a lawyer in Pembroke Pines, Florida, the motion cited Bob Dylan’s song “Hurricane” about wrongfully convicted boxer Rubin Carter and said that under the lawsuit’s theory, “[G]iven that a jury convicted Carter, any individual who suggested something to the contrary or who criticized the credibility of the state’s witnesses in that trial should be guilty of defamation.”
“Hurricane” is part of United States defamation case law lore in the music industry: Eyewitness Patricia Graham “Patty” Valentine sued Dylan for defamation and said he implied she was part of the conspiracy to convict Carter. A judge granted summary judgment in Dylan’s favor, and the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed in 1983.
Pancier, who is defending Cooper with Unite the People lawyer Michael Hayden, said if Megan’s “mindset had been applied back in the 1970’s, then the Bob Dylan classic song should not have been published or recorded and perhaps Rubin Carter would have died in prison and the world would not have been able to enjoy this Bob Dylan classic recording.”
Pancier also said in a later filing that a statement Megan’s lawyers identified as defamatory to Megan is actually about me.
“Plaintiff suggests that the statements in Defendant’s October 29, 2024 livestream refers to her when in fact they refer to a California based reporter, ‘the cockeyed lady,’ who happens to have the same first name as Plaintiff (though different spelling) who has been and continues to cover Plaintiff’s case in the media,” Pancier wrote.
Judge Altonaga did not specifically address the Meghann Thee Reporter defense or the “Hurricane” comparison in her order rejecting dismissal. But her findings distinguish Megan’s defamation claims against Cooper from Valentine’s defamation claims against Dylan by declaring Cooper’s statements against Megan to be factual statements instead of opinions.
Dylan mentions Valentine twice in “Hurricane”, including saying she “just nodded her head” as another witness told police he saw two men jump “into a white car with out-of-state plates.”
Dylan testified in a deposition “that he believed the song did not depict Valentine as a participant in the alleged frame-up,” according to a 1983 appellate ruling, and the three-judge panel said, “We seriously question that the song implies Valentine was a part of the conspiracy.” The panel also said Dylan’s lyrics “are substantially and materially true” and “not reasonably susceptible to a defamatory meaning.”
In Megan’s case, Cooper’s allegedly defamatory statements include, “We know you a lying ass hoe, and you have absolutely ruined Tory’s life.” and “At the end of the day, a bitch lying on somebody is low down. Yes she got hurt. And that’s cool. But how did you get hurt? How? And what are the circumstances? And what after that? So bitch, if you think I’m finna be sitting up here boo hooing for a bitch that played up in yall face. Not mine, because I always said her ass was lying.”
The alleged statements cover three areas: Plaintiff alleges Defendant defamed her through three distinct assertions “(1) that she lied under oath during Peterson’s trial; (2) that she is mentally incompetent and requires a guardian; and (3) that she is an alcoholic.”
As a public figure, Megan needs to allege five things to establish a defamation claim under Florida law” “(1) publication; (2) falsity; (3) actual malice; (4) actual damages; and (5) the statement was defamatory.”
Judges must assume all allegations in a lawsuit are true when deciding dismissal motions, and Judge Altonaga said Megan’s allegations against Cooper survive because Cooper so closely tied them to facts instead of opinions.
Cooper’s statements about Megan lying “indicate that Defendant was not merely opining on the jury’s verdict or Plaintiff’s credibility — she accused Plaintiff of perjury, calling her a ‘lying ass hoe’ who ‘ruined [Peterson’s] life’ and questioning whether she was ‘caught trying to deceive the courts again[.]’”
“Nor can Defendant’s statements be dismissed as mere hyperbole because accusing someone of lying in court is not exaggerated rhetoric — it is an assertion of fact that can be disproven,” the judge wrote.
Altonaga also said Cooper’s statements about Megan “allegedly asserted or implied that Plaintiff is legally incapacitated, requires a guardian, and suffers from alcoholism.”
“As Plaintiff notes, legal incapacity is a verifiable fact,” according to the ruling. “Likewise, Florida courts have long recognized that falsely labeling someone an alcoholic can sustain a claim for defamation per se.”
The judge also said Megan’s lawsuit “makes a compelling case that Defendant acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” including that Cooper “seemingly profited from the defamation — gaining a larger social media following, online notoriety, and lucrative sponsorship opportunities.”
“Defendant downplays these allegations, arguing that “spite” and a failure to investigate do not establish actual malice,” Altonaga wrote. “But Plaintiff’s claims extend far beyond mere negligence — they paint a picture of an intentional campaign to destroy her reputation. That is more than enough to satisfy the pleading standard.”
Two weeks after the ruling, Cooper shared a multi-paragraph post on X that said, “When I used my platform to express my thoughts and ideas, I hurt someone.” She denied profiting from her videos and said she’s never been paid “to speak ill of anyone” and “There is never a day where I would want my behavior to cause someone to want to remove themselves from this life. EVER.”
“I was overzealous in the pursuit of what I thought the truth was, and the reality is that doesn’t make anything a fact. I apologize and am deeply remorseful for the harm I’ve caused,” Cooper wrote. She did not name Megan, but she said said “this case is still very active, so under no circumstances do I believe that expressing my thoughts here is going to make everything go away.”
“It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t with this internet shit so there would be no way for me to please everyone. I just thought that it was important to come to the same space where I said other things and express my contriteness,” Cooper wrote.
Nicki Minaj settled similar lawsuit last year
If Cooper does settle with Megan, the arrangement could be similar to what rapper Nicki Minaj arranged with another online commentator, Marley “Nosey Heaux” Green.
Green settled a federal defamation lawsuit from Minaj, legal name Onika Maraj, by apologizing and admitting “that (a) any and all statements which she has ever made about Maraj using and/or abusing cocaine were false,” according to a stipulation of settlement filed in the Southern District of New York on Aug. 20.
Green agreed to never say anything about Minaj being “engaged in conduct which reflects poorly on Maraj’s integrity,” and she can’t quote anyone else who does. She also can’t mention “directly or indirectly, Maraj’s husband or child in public.”
If Green violates any of the settlement terms, she has to pay Minaj $50,000 for each violation.
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I'm sorry the Bob Dylan comparison is hilarious 🤣