Rapper MoneySign Suede fatally stabbed in shower at California prison, lawyer says

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles-area rapper known as MoneySign Suede was killed in a California prison Tuesday, his attorney and the state corrections department said.

The rapper, 22, real name was Jaime Brugada Valdez, was found at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad around 10 p.m. “with injuries consistent with a homicide,” the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.

The “Back to the Bag” rapper was stabbed in the neck in a shower, his attorney Nicholas Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said he spoke with Valdez’s family, who were informed of details of his death by the corrections department.

“There’s an investigation, but at this point the motive remains unknown,” Rosenberg said. “Suede was a very popular guy, very mild-mannered. Everybody loved him.”

The corrections department did not say how Valdez died or where he was found.

It said he was not in his cell during counting at 9:55 p.m. He was found unresponsive in another area of the housing unit. Lifesaving measures were begun, but he was pronounced dead at 10 p.m., it said.

The Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ earlier reported news of Valdez’s death.

Rosenberg said MoneySign Suede was an up-and-coming rapper originally from Huntington Park, a city within the Los Angeles area. The “Back to the Bag” video on his official YouTube page has more than 7 million views, and the account has more than 87,000 subscribers.

He was serving what amounted to a 32-month sentence for two gun-related convictions. He was sentenced in December, and the sentences for the two cases were running concurrently, according to the corrections department.

The Correctional Training Facility is a prison that houses around 4,000 minimum- and medium-security inmates, the department said.