Con Artist Busted After Posing as Adele's Manager to Score Free Tickets and Memorabilia

This con artist's story is a real-life Icarus tale.

Adele performs tribute to George Michael during Grammys.
USA Today Sports

Image via USA Today Sports/Robert Hanashiro

Adele performs tribute to George Michael during Grammys.

Icarus is the story of a boy who was given wings made of wax and feathers by his father Daedalus to escape the Greek island of Crete. Icarus was told by Daedalus to follow his flight pattern and not fly too close to the sun because his wings would melt, which would send him crashing into the sea. Icarus didn't listen, flying too close to the sun, and suffering the exact fate that his father warned him about. A con artist who was recently busted for pretending to be Adele's longtime manager Jonathan Dickins could have learned a valuable lesson from that Greek mythological tale. 

Joshua Jackson and his wife Angel Lii were caught by Miami-Dade police detectives after posing as Dickins to receive free tickets to see Kendrick Lamar at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami last weekend, according to the Miami Herald. Over a year ago, Dickins contacted Miami-Dade authorities to report the scam after he received numerous messages about comped ticket requests from a person claiming to be him. 

Steven Kaufman, a detective from the Miami-Dade cyber crimes department, posed as a production assistant to receive the tickets from Jackson, who claimed to be Dickins' assistant, this past Saturday at Bayfront Park. When Jackson arrived with his wife, they were arrested and charged with grand theft and identity theft charges. A third woman was with them at the time, but she was not arrested. 

Back in 2007, Jackson and his wife were sentenced to two years in prison after pretending to be Madonna's manager, stealing $2.4 million worth of jewelry, and selling it at a pawn shop in South Florida. Three years ago, Jackson was sued by two people after he posed as a number of individuals, including Oprah Winfrey's nephew, an executive for her television network OWN, and a former aide for President Barack Obama, in an effort to get free stuff.

On two separate occasions, Jackson and his wife received some pretty lenient consequences after pretending to be closely associated to a big-name celebrity. Both of them really should have learned their lesson by now. Instead, they flew too close to the sun once again, and could get some serious time behind bars. 

Latest in Music