Media hoaxed by Phil Spector prank

The world's media - including The First Post - have been hoaxed by an unidentified man posing as Phil Spector, posting messages on the Twitter site about life in Los Angeles County Jail before and after he was sentenced to 19 years to life last Friday for the murder of Lana Clarkson.

The phoney 'tweets' began two days before sentencing. They included a story of how the legendary record producer had befriended a cockroach called Wilson, how he was working on his autobiography - supposedly titled From Uptown to Downtown - and this comment made on returning to his cell from the Friday court appearance: "As if it wasn't bad enough I got locked up for 19 years, the bastards even confiscated my wig."

The hoax was unearthed when Spector's 28-year-old wife Rachelle gave a TV interview in which she said that her husband was allowed only limited contact with the outside world and that the idea of him sitting on his laptop for hour after hour was therefore baloney.

"He gets about 15 minutes a day to make a phone call," she told the CBS show /Inside Edition/. "I only get two 30-minute visits a week."

Yesterday, the hoaxer used the phoney Twitter account to own up. "I am NOT Phil Spector," he wrote. "I made this account as a joke. Befriending a cockroach? C'mon folks... even Phil's not that crazy."

Rachelle, who was not even born when her 69-year-old husband was producing his biggest hits, told Inside Edition that it was love at first sight when she first met him in 2003. She also claimed she likes his frizzy haircut: could 'Rachelle' be a hoaxer too?