Trials of ODB

LOS ANGELES -- In the past six months, Wu-Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard has had various scrapes with the law. He had yet another one Thursday, when the 29-year-old rapper (known to the courts by his birth name, Russell Tyrone Jones) was ticketed for driving without a license just three hours after clearing his name of the same violation in a different incident. ODB was stopped by West Hollywood police Thursday at 7:40 p.m. for a traffic violation, and he was cited for being an unlicensed driver, according to Sgt. Vincent Callier of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. His vehicle was impounded. Earlier that day, ODB and his lawyer had convinced a judge that he had been wrongly mistaken for his cousin, fellow Wu-Tang Clan member RZA (born Robert Fitzgerald Diggs), on an arrest warrant stemming from the same type of violation on March 26, 1998. In the March 26 incident, RZA was cited for driving without a license, and allegedly identified himself as Russell Jones (ODB's birth name). A warrant was subsequently issued for Russell Jones when RZA failed to appear in court April 24, according to a courtroom clerk. ODB and his lawyer, Kevin Barnes, set the record straight during the rapper's appearance at Beverly Hills Municipal Court Thursday to face separate charges (three counts of felony terrorist threats stemming from an arrest last month, to which ODB pleaded innocent).