Nicki Minaj’s Jelani Maraj Brother Tried a ‘South Park’ Defense After His Rape Conviction

Nicki Minaj’s brother Jelani Maraj was convicted of a horrible crime, raping his 11-year-old stepdaughter, around two years ago. Page Six reported that he was sentenced today to 25 years to life in prison. But one thing stood out to me more than anything else.

Maraj insists he’s innocent and this is all a plot to extort his sister, but he said this when asking the court for leniency, “I’d like to apologize for the pain that I caused. I had an excessive drinking problem.”

That’s a South Park joke. In fact, it’s a South Park joke about a somewhat similar situation, when Kyle’s kindergarten student brother Ike was in a sexual relationship with his teacher. When the relationship is exposed, the teacher claims she’s an alcoholic, which Cartman calls “The Mel Gibson Defense.”

The Chewbacca Defense got more attention but this one was pretty sharp, too. There was a time not too long ago when we were pretty willing to accept any bad behavior from celebrities was the result of being drunk. Harvey Weinstein didn’t even bother with the alcoholism, he just checked into sex offender rehab and was like “okay, we cool now guys?”

As for Maraj, he’s appealing the conviction, but I doubt he’s going to get out of it by going to rehab at this point.