Source: Icon Sportswire / Getty
Sean Kingston is now facing a hefty prison sentence after he and his mother were federally indicted and charged with wire fraud totaling $1 million.
Last Friday (July 19), singer and rapper Sean Kingston was indicted in a federal courtroom in Miami, Florida along with his mother, Janice Turner on charges connected with a $1 million wire fraud scheme. The listed charges are one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud charges with the intent to defraud victim sellers of high-end specialty vehicles, jewelry, and other goods bought with fraudulent documents. If convicted, both face a prison sentence of up to twenty years.
In their statement, the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida said that Kingston, aka Kisean Anderson and Turner “unjustly enriched themselves by falsely representing that they had executed bank wire or other monetary payment transfers.” The businesses targeted included a car dealership, from which Kingston and Turner are alleged to have stolen a Cadillac Escalade, and one individual who alleges that the two stole $480,000 in jewelry from them.
An attorney for that individual says that Kingston’s method was “basically a script, he says that he works with Justin Bieber, and obviously puts on a big show here, this is a rental house, he doesn’t own it, and he lures people using his celebrity into having them release things without him paying for it and then he simply never pays.” Kingston is best known for his 2007 single “Beautiful Girls”, which spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He’s worked with Bieber, Wyclef Jean, and Nicki Minaj before stepping back from music.
The 34-year-old artist was arrested in Fort Irwin, California on May 24 which was the same day that a SWAT team and other police officers conducted a raid on Kingston’s home in the Southwest Ranches suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Turner, 61, was arrested during that raid. Both have had their issues with the law – Kingston is also accused of violating a probation sentence related to felony charges of trafficking stolen property which ends in October 2025. Turner served 16 months in prison after being convicted of filing fraudulent loan applications in 2006.