A page positioned as the "personal page" of "Nicole Mincey," identified as owner of ProTrump45, but using what resemble real images of the New Jersey college student with a similar name.
The college student who says her identity and biography were appropriated to craft a “Nicole Mincey” persona online is a 21-year-old business major in Jersey City. She goes by the name Nicole Mincy (without the “E.”)
The real Nicole Mincy’s sometimes contradictory comments to both Heavy and Daily Beast raise more questions than they answer about the mysterious young woman from Newark whose biography matches the online biographies pushed out for the Nicole Mincey personage, which was so craftily developed that someone using the name even appeared on a national radio show and gave direct quotes to a conservative news site before President Donald Trump latched onto it and tweeted, “Thank you, Nicole,” sparking a round of Twitter condemnation that he had tweeted a fake bot.
The real college student, Nicole Mincy, comes up linked online in multiple ways to the Nicole Mincey persona, and she told Heavy her Facebook was hacked to take her identity and told Daily Beast she wrote blogs for the underlying merchandise website for a time but that her name was used and slightly changed by a shadowy couple without her permission to create the Twitter identity (she has not fully identified them.)
Here’s one twist that has gone unreported thus far, though; Heavy has uncovered that an old Twitter page that appears to be positioned as one of the real college student’s old accounts (it has photos that match the person on her real Facebook account, for example), interacted with some of the now-suspended ProTrump45 affiliated pages on Twitter as far back as 2014. You can see screenshots documenting that twist below.
Asked about all of this, Nicole Mincy, the real college student, told Heavy in a series of responses, “My Facebook was recently hacked and used to sign up to several websites I already cleared that up with Facebook…. Thanks.” At another point in the conversation: “Just admit this ‘Nicole’ character is in fact a robot.” And at another point, “I’ve received threats for a store that doesn’t even belong to me.” She also said, “I’m not even interested in politics or have anything to do with Trump.”
“Someone altered my name and used it for their business,” she wrote, threatening legal action. She also insisted, “Please take my real name off of your website.”
After communicating with the student over the weekend, Heavy originally decided to withhold her name after she claimed her Facebook account was hacked and she had nothing to do with politics or Donald Trump, who started a firestorm when he retweeted the now-suspended “Nicole Mincey” Twitter account, which hawks Trump merchandise and the Trump political agenda with a fake profile pic. The underlying merchandise page is dubbed ProTrump45; its Twitter page, which changed identities as the controversy raged, is suspended. Placeit has accused at least 10 sites, linked to one person it didn’t identify, of appropriating the pictures of its models and has sought the Twitter suspensions for the pages.
The photo that “Nicole Mincey” used as her Twitter profile picture but that is not the photo of college student Nicole Mincy.
Nicole Mincy, the college student, told Daily Beast she was recruited recently to write blogs for the business’ group of 10 by shadowy figures known only as Lorraine and William (blog posts in the name of “Nicole Mincey” and a biography with details matching the real Nicole Mincy’s life story are posted on the ProTrump45 store website). Heavy is now naming her because she’s allowed her name to be reported by another news organization, although she has a different first name she uses on Facebook in front of “Nicole Mincy.” She asked Daily Beast to withhold that name, so Heavy has decided to do so as well.
Heavy has found additional suspended pro Trump sites beyond 10.
Despite the student’s insistence to Heavy that she had nothing to do with politics or Trump, she told Daily Beast she was recruited because she was already posting pro-Trump memes on the Internet and first agreed to blog for the ProTrump45 store’s website because she “wanted to write blogs and get the conservative view out.” She told Daily Beast she grew upset with the group and dropped out of it but “Lorraine” and “William” continued to use her identity, with the slight last name change, online to her chagrin.
A page using photos that resemble the real Nicole Mincy’s Facebook pictures was positioned as her “personal” page, while ID’ing her as the owner of ProTrump45:
Here’s her LinkedIn:
Now more on the added twist: Nicole Mincy told Heavy she had nothing to do with it all and told Daily Beast her involvement was recent and limited. She provided only sketchy information about the identities of the others in the group that made them almost impossible to trace. However, the old Twitter page unearthed by Heavy interacted years ago with multiple accounts that have their own interactions with ProTrump45 and pushing out Trump propaganda.
Here’s the old Twitter page that appears to be the real college student’s, with her full identity blurred out by Heavy:
Here’s an example: The old Twitter page using the real college student’s photos, last name, and mentioning her college, which last tweeted in 2015, wrote these posts in 2014 (Heavy has blurred out expletives, her face and full handle):
The account @oohhGAWD, is now suspended and also tweeted about Donald Trump recently, according to the cache for the account on Google.
The cache for that site’s profile reads, “The latest Tweets from D A N N Y (@oohhGAWD). Make America Skate Again Make America Safe Again Make America Great Again.” There are interactions between @oohhGAWD, ProTrump45 and “Nicole Mincey” that come up in Google cache. Example:
Another site that the old Twitter page interacted with later positioned to be a bi college student named Jasmine who was supporting Donald Trump. It went by the handle @capitalljay and the old Twitter page that appears to be Nicole Mincy’s interacted with it in 2014 too:
@capitalljay is also suspended and comes up under cache as interacting with ProTrump45 in May.
The site comes up in cache as posting political memes and comments that are pro Trump. If you search @capitalljay and @protrump45, there are many replies to posts that use their handles together.
Then there’s @so_kamirah, a suspended site. It, too, comes up in Twitter replies along with ProTrump45.
A screenshot shows it interacted with another old Twitter page that appears to be in the name of the real college student, including her photos. That’s not the end of it. There are several other pro Trump sites with stock photos that have similar interactions that date back years.
Old Twitter interactions with people who appeared to know her personally indicate the real college student may have had multiple Twitter pages over the years and, in 2015, there was an online effort to make a page in her last name a verified account. The old Twitter page also interacted with a man connected as a relative to Nicole Mincy through online records.
The old Twitter page with what appear to be the real college student’s photos last tweeted in December 2015. The posts read like those of a typical teenager: “My life is a constant cycle of waiting for the weekend” and “new crush!” and, on the anniversary of September 11, 2001, “I’m sad today cause 9/11 was my first tragedy” and “In high school the syllabus for a class is a joke but in college that thing is your life on a piece of paper.” (Nicole Mincy attends Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City and her LinkedIn page says she is scheduled to graduate in 2018. She has held a series of internships and once tutored disabled children, according to LinkedIn).
The real name of the New Jersey college student was used to register now-defunct online stores and a GoFundMe page for “Young Black Republicans” that has also been deleted. The GoFundMe page used both the name “Nicole Mincey” and the college student’s real name on the same profile description and raised a small amount of money. The real woman’s Facebook page, which is filled with photos of her life, was used to create the GoFundMe account.
Nicole Mincy told Daily Beast that another member of the group used the “Nicole Mincey” persona to speak on a national radio show in favor of Trump. She claimed that the shadowy group was the one using the business address of her school for ProTrump45 after Heavy noted that the press release announcing the ProTrump45 venture, which lists Nicole Mincey as media contact, used the mail room address for the real Nicole Mincy’s Jersey City college.
Read more about the “Nicole Mincey” saga and listen to the audio of “Nicole Mincey” appearing on the radio here:
