One would assume inmates at New York’s Mid-State Correctional Facility would catch a break from prison officials on their birthdays, but that isn’t the case — not even for resident celebrities inside the minimum security penitentiary.

According to MTV News, Ja Rule was disciplined by prison officials for participating in an unauthorized phone interview with a Sirius XM radio station last week. To celebrate his birthday last Wednesday [February 29] the incarcerated Queens rapper called in to Renada Romain’s Ear Candy Mornings show on Hip Hop Nation to promote his new album, Pain Is Love 2.

While the conversation was a great moment for Ja to connect with his fans, he did not have the green light from the powers that be. At a disciplinary hearing held on Tuesday [March 6] the rapper was hit with a seven-day work detail punishment for breaking the rules.

Ja’s publicist Melanie Bonvicino told MTV News that the platinum-selling entertainer has been on his best behavior since arriving at Mid-State in June 2011, but he might have irked the prison bosses when he granted a similar interview to the New York Daily News last month.

"That sort of created this issue with the powers that be at the facility because after that, they refused all interviews for him," Bonvicino told MTV News.

Despite the slap on the wrist for this offense, Bonvicino plans to continue to find ways to grant her client the opportunity to promote various projects between now and his release in February 2013.

“There will be no changes at this time, we had a record coming out, and Ja Rule obviously is really all about his fans and as such it was his birthday and we had a record to promote, so this is his usual here," she said.

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