D4vd was formally charged today with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez and entered a not guilty plea to all counts. His attorney entered the plea on his behalf during arraignment at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. He remains held without bail.

David Anthony Burke faces one count each of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. The murder charge carries three special circumstance allegations: murder to prevent testimony, murder for financial gain, and murder by lying in wait. Prosecutors also allege Burke used a sharp instrument to commit the crime. If convicted as charged, he faces death or life in state prison without the possibility of parole. A decision on whether to seek the death penalty has not been made.

According to the complaint, Burke invited Celeste to his Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025. She arrived and was never seen alive again. Court records show the sexual abuse offense date as September 7, 2023, when Celeste was under 14. The mutilation charge carries an offense date of May 5, 2025.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman addressed the case in a statement. “When she threatened to expose his criminal conduct and devastate his musical career, Burke allegedly murdered her, cut up her body and stuffed her body in two bags that were placed in the front trunk of his car,” Hochman said. “There the dismembered body sat for over four months decomposing until it was found at a tow yard on Sept. 8, 2025.”

The case is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division. As previously reported by miixtapechiick.com, Burke was arrested by complaint on April 16 after the DA’s office declined to seek a grand jury indictment.

Drake‘s attorneys filed their reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on April 17, pushing back on UMG Recordings and a separate group of academics who sided with the label, and arguing the lower court made errors serious enough to require the case be sent back.

As previously reported by miixtapechiick.com, a federal judge dismissed Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us,” and UMG filed its response brief in March asking the Second Circuit to let that ruling stand. Drake’s team, represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, says the judge went well outside what the rules allow at the dismissal stage, pulling in outside materials, making factual findings, and drawing conclusions against Drake — all without giving him any chance to respond.

The central argument is about who the court imagined was listening. Drake’s team says the judge didn’t ask how an average listener would understand “Not Like Us.” Instead, the ruling assumed the listener was someone steeped in the full history of the Drake-Lamar feud, familiar with every track exchanged, and already reading the song through that lens. His attorneys say those two audiences are not interchangeable. The reply points out that the second-most-streamed song from the feud had roughly 4.1% of “Not Like Us”‘s total views, which means the vast majority of people who heard the recording hadn’t heard the other songs the ruling relied on for context. Under that math, the brief argues, the court effectively declared 95% of actual listeners unreasonable.

A track called “Taylor Made Freestyle” is where Drake’s team says the lower court’s approach fell apart most clearly. That song wasn’t mentioned anywhere in Drake’s complaint, was only available online for about a week, and doesn’t feature Drake’s own voice — yet the judge cited it as something a reasonable listener would have used to frame the pedophile accusations in “Not Like Us.” Getting there required the court to go outside the complaint and read things in UMG’s favor, both of which are procedurally improper at the dismissal stage. Drake’s attorneys say if the judge wanted to rely on that material, the rules required converting the case to summary judgment first, which would have given Drake the opportunity to present evidence in response. They say that evidence would have included the actual source of the “young girls” line — a 2023 episode of the Joe Budden Podcast that was criticizing Drake for dating women the host considered too young for him, not for any interest in minors.

The reply also takes issue with what the lower court ignored. Drake’s complaint described the cultural moment the song landed in, a period when several high-profile men in entertainment had faced serious criminal and civil consequences for child sex abuse and exploitation. His team argues that context made the pedophile accusations in “Not Like Us” land differently than typical diss track hyperbole, and that real-world reactions — including threats against Drake and an attempted shooting at his home — proved that listeners took the claims seriously. The brief argues the court drew inferences against Drake from disputed outside material while disregarding well-pleaded facts already in the complaint.

On the question of whether the song reached new audiences after its initial release, Drake’s team argues UMG’s position has no legal support. UMG had argued that because the song was already widely known when it was performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, the feud context followed it into that room automatically. Drake’s reply says that’s not how republication works. The complaint described an audience at the Super Bowl that included people who had never heard the song before, and his attorneys argue that performance has to be evaluated on its own terms. They also note that UMG’s own standard recording contract includes a clause allowing the label to remove content it determines constitutes defamation or libel, which his team frames as evidence that the label’s current argument is inconsistent with how it actually operates.

A group of social scientists and legal scholars filed their own brief on April 15 backing UMG’s position, arguing that diss tracks are a well-established format rooted in African American oral tradition, built on exaggeration and competitive insult rather than factual claims. That brief, filed through the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic at the University of California, Irvine, also argued that treating rap lyrics as factual statements in court opens the door to racial bias, citing decades of research showing that exposure to rap evidence produces racially skewed judgments against Black defendants. Drake’s reply addresses it directly, calling their argument that he effectively consented to the pedophile accusations by releasing his own diss tracks “imaginative,” noting that UMG never actually raised that argument itself and that it wouldn’t apply under the law regardless.

UMG filed its oral argument request on April 10, asking the Second Circuit to allow live argument in the case. No date has been scheduled.

Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million federal lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Warden Danny Samuel, and unnamed correctional officers at California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, claiming the prison placed him in a housing unit with a known violent predator and failed to intervene when that inmate attacked him.

The lawsuit, filed April 14 in the Central District of California, lays out seven causes of action: 8th and 14th Amendment violations, negligence, negligent supervision and training, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of California privacy rights, and conversion of personal property.

As previously reported by miixtapechiick.com, Lanez, real name Daystar Peterson, was stabbed 16 times on May 12, 2025, at approximately 7:30 a.m. while housed at CCI Tehachapi, sustaining wounds to his back, torso, the back of his head, arms, hands, and face. With both lungs collapsed, he was airlifted to Kern Medical Center in critical condition and placed on a ventilator before being transferred to an infirmary and relocated to California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, where he remains today.

The attacker, identified as inmate Santino Casio, is serving a life sentence for the second-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder of a 13-year-old girl while on parole, with a deadly weapon enhancement and great bodily injury finding. Casio also had prior in-prison convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and for manufacturing and possessing a weapon while incarcerated. His most recent prison violation occurred just 90 days before the stabbing.

The lawsuit argues that CDCR’s own database had Casio flagged as “Close-A” maximum custody with a documented pattern of targeting vulnerable inmates. Under the department’s own classification protocols, the complaint states, Casio should never have been housed with Peterson given both his record and Peterson’s high-profile status as a target. Warden Samuel oversaw a “Sensitive Needs Yard” policy specifically designed to separate celebrities from maximum-security offenders, a policy the suit claims was ignored entirely.

On the response side, the complaint alleges correctional staff were not present when the attack began and did not use pepper spray, smoke grenades, rubber ammunition, or any other available force to stop it, despite warning signs posted inside the facility indicating lethal force was authorized. In his own handwritten grievance filed July 8, 2025, Peterson wrote that staff stood there and watched and did not approach the incident to stop it.

The lawsuit also includes claims over property seized while Peterson was hospitalized. The complaint states CDCR took two notebooks containing unpublished song lyrics and attorney-client communications with no inventory, no receipt, and no return. Peterson filed a separate grievance on June 9, 2025, specifically about the missing books, writing in his own hand that they are worth millions of dollars and that footage of the stabbing was sold to TMZ without his consent. Neither grievance received a response.

Peterson’s attorneys are seeking $100 million in compensatory damages, broken down in the complaint as $1 million per stab wound, $10 million for facial scarring and career harm, and $25 million for pain, suffering, property loss, and emotional trauma. The suit also seeks punitive damages against the officers and warden, the immediate return of the song books, and a court order requiring CDCR to reform how it classifies and houses celebrity inmates.

Lanez is currently in prison serving a 10-year sentence for the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion. His appeal was denied by the California Court of Appeal, and the California Supreme Court declined to review the case in February 2026, as previously reported by miixtapechiick.com. He is eligible for parole in July 2029.

CDCR has not issued a public statement in response to the lawsuit.