Man Jailed For Calling Emergency Services Claiming to Be Nicki Minaj

An Irish man has been jailed for impersonating Nicki Minaj, among other offenses. He wasn't locked up because his Onika impression was unconvincing — for all we know, he nailed it — but because he did so while clogging local helplines with his nonexistent emergencies.

24-year-old Stephen Brown was sentenced to four months in jail for violating an Anti-Social Behavior Order, or ASBO as they call it in the United Kingdom where it's law, for essentially crying wolf too damn often. According to Irish news site Belfast Live (via XXL), Brown's passion for dialing 999 — the UK's emergency number, a la 911 — with false claims had already landed him in legal hot water, and he was banned from calling. But Brown picked up the phone again on Christmas day in 2014, to report that two men were threatening to kill him. The notorious tattletale was too intoxicated to provide further, legitimate-sounding details, so the dispatcher disregarded his call.

Then Brown decided to change tactics, calling back just 5 minutes later. He reportedly told the operator, you know what? Cancel my previous call for help — I am in fact Nicki Minaj, and I'd like to report a poltergeist. It may not shock you to learn that the authorities did not accept that he was the VMA-winning rapper, and they failed to view Brown's allegedly haunted house as a credible threat.

Antrim County Court judge Desmond Marrinan said that Brown's antics could potentially prevent an actual emergency call from getting through, and thus were punishable by law. The Minaj wannabe was initially sentenced to 8 months in jail, but the time was reduced because he clearly needs help. Defense barrister Aaron Thompson called Brown a chronic alcoholic and said "he is his own worst enemy".

Nicki Minaj has not commented on Brown's identity appropriation, or the ghost-at-large.

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