Federal charges of more than $1 million worth of fraud have led to the indictment of rapper and singer Sean Kingston as well as his mother in South Florida.
According to court documents, 34-year-old Kingston and his mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, appeared in federal court for the first time on Friday.
Earlier this month, a Miami grand jury returned an indictment accusing Kingston and his mother of taking part in a plot to use fictitious documents to deceive people into purchasing jewelry, high-end specialized automobiles, and other products.
Kingston was arrested on May 23 at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in the Mojave Desert of California, where he was playing. A month later, he was hauled into the Broward County jail on comparable state charges.
Turner was taken into custody on the same day her son was, during a SWAT team raid on his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, rented property.
The federal indictment states that Kingston and Turner made up the story that they had sent money via bank wire or another method for expensive goods, even though no such transfers had occurred.
Then, according to investigators, Kingston and Turner retained things that had been fraudulently purchased for over $1 million even though they had not paid for them.
According to the warrants for the state’s allegations, they stole about $500,000 in jewels between October and March, along with over $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from a dealer of Cadilac Escalades, over $100,000 from First Republic Bank, and $86,000 from a company that makes bespoke beds.
The 2007 No. 1 smash song “Beautiful Girls” by the Jamaican American artist also included Justin Bieber on the song “Eenie Meenie.”
An Associated Press message requesting comment was not immediately answered by Robert Rosenblatt, Kingston’s and his mother’s attorney. He had earlier stated that they were “confident of a successful resolution” and that they looked forward to addressing the charges.
Kisean Anderson, also known as Kingston, was already serving a two-year probationary term for trafficking in stolen goods.
In 2006, his mother admitted to bank fraud after taking more than $160,000, and federal court documents show that she spent close to 1.5 years in jail.
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