Rapper and singer Sean Kingston, 34, and his mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, have been indicted on federal fraud charges in Broward County, Florida. The pair stand accused of participating in a scheme designed to defraud their victims of high-end specialty vehicles, jewelry, and other goods using fake documents.
According to the Associated Press, Kingston and Turner were both arrested on May 23, in separate locations; Kingston during a show at Fort Irwin, and Turner when a SWAT team raided his rented mansion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The federal Indictment alleges that Kingston and Turner said that they used wire transfers to pay for the high-end items, but no transfers actually occurred. According to investigators, the pair then kept in excess of $1 million worth of items despite not paying for them.
According to the warrant for the charges in Florida, the pair are alleged to have stolen nearly $500,000 in jewelry, over $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from a Cadillac Escalade dealer, over $100,000 from First Republic Bank, and $86,000 from a custom bed maker.
Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Anderson, had already been serving a two-year probation sentence for trafficking stolen property.
According to Variety, the pair face up to 20 years in prison for each count. If found guilty on all counts, the pair would see significant time behind bars.
The United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida stated in a press release announcing the indictment, “According to allegations in the indictment, the defendants unjustly enriched themselves by falsely representing that they had executed bank wire or other monetary payment transfers as payment for vehicles, jewelry, and other goods purchased by the defendants, when in fact no such bank wire or other monetary payment transfers had been executed by the purported banks, and thereafter the defendants retained or attempted to retain the vehicles, jewelry, and other goods despite non-payment.”
According to one of the attorneys for an individual, who is suing Anderson, he uses his celebrity status and association with Justin Bieber, with whom he collaborated on the song “Eenie Meanie,” to lure potential victims in.
“(Anderson uses) 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.”
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