DMX Didn't Mean It — Honest!

DMX didn't mean to commit identity theft last year at an Arizona hospital, his former road manager says.

DMX (real name Earl Simmons) was charged with identity theft after he used the alias Troy Jones when he went to the Scottsdale Mayo Clinic to be treated for pneumonia. But Mark "Po" Dean, DMX's former road manager and friend, says the rapper didn't want to be recognized and opted to use someone else's identity so he could keep his own under wraps.

"I wanted him to just get service immediately," Dean told XXL magazine. "Usually when you say an artist like DMX, everybody is so star-struck [they're] not concentrating on what's going on."

Dean told the magazine he and DMX left the clinic when patients began recognizing him (so much for that brilliant idea...) and promptly gave the clinic's receptionist his cellphone number so he could pay his medical bill, which later cost him $7,500 and a life outside of prison.

Does anybody remember using the "I didn't mean it" defense as a child — after, say, thwacking your sibling or getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar? Do you ever remember it working?

DMX pleaded guilty to identity theft, drug possession and animal cruelty on Dec. 30. He's in jail awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday. He has since said he'll leave Arizona after he's released and hopes to become a pastor.