Kidd Cole clearly didn’t learn his lesson about false claims while on MTV’s Catfish: He was arrested on Wednesday in Washington D.C., after making a number of unfounded terroristic threats.
According to a press release from the Metro Transit Police, Jerez Nehemiah Stone-Coleman is accused of making 11 phone calls reporting “bomb threats and/or hostage situations” between December 12 and May 12.
In the press release, authorities said “In each instance, the caller conveyed specific threat information concerning destructive devices and intended acts of violence.”
In one incident on Jan. 22, Kidd Cole threatened to take hostages on a metrobus and said he would kill them unless he was paid $15 million in ransom money. The next month, he claimed someone was threatening bus passengers with an AS-50 sniper rifle and said he was going to blow up the vehicle.
In another incident this month, someone matching the description of the person Kidd described was frisked, detained and questioned before authorities determined he was innocent. And, in yet another call, he said people “from France” told him of their plans to assassinate President Obama and said they planted bombs around the Potomac Avenue Metro station. The whole station was shut down while investigators searched for bombs.
Investigators responded to all of the calls, but determined each of the reports was a hoax. They used cell phone records, surveillance footage and audio recordings to identify Kidd Cole. He was arrested on Wednesday.
Exactly one year to the day before his arrest, Kidd Cole was featured on MTV’s Catfish. In the episode, he convinced an unwitting woman to spend her time and money promoting his work as a hip-hop producer. In the years before that, he gave a number of industry interviews saying he is Will Smith’s young cousin, he was collaborating with Kanye, and he was nominated for a NAACP award.
In December, Kidd Cole pled guilty to defrauding Virginia Commonwealth University. He was sentenced to 12 months, but CNN reports that sentence was suspended after he underwent a psychological evaluation. He began making the terroristic phone calls one week later.
