25-5-2024 (MIAMI) American rapper and singer Sean Kingston along with his mother Janice Turner have been charged with orchestrating a audacious fraud operation amounting to over $1.3 million (£1 million) in recent months, according to arrest warrants made public on Friday.
The 34-year-old musician, best known for his 2007 chart-topping hit ‘Beautiful Girls’, and his 61-year-old mother Turner are alleged to have stolen money, jewellery, a Cadillac Escalade vehicle and furniture through an “organised scheme to defraud” as well as grand theft, identity theft and related crimes.
Their alleged criminality came to a head on Thursday when a SWAT team raided Kingston’s rented mansion in the Fort Lauderdale suburb, leading to Turner’s arrest on the premises. Kingston himself was apprehended at Fort Irwin, an Army training facility in California’s Mojave Desert where he was scheduled to perform.
The Jamaican-American performer, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, is currently being held at a California jail awaiting extradition to Florida to face the charges. His attorney Robert Rosenblatt stated Kingston would return voluntarily if permitted to do so, asserting “this would save the state the expense of extradition and the costs of travel for the detectives and Sean”.
Meanwhile, Turner was refused bail and remains in custody at Broward County jail on a $160,000 bond. Rosenblatt maintained the pair’s innocence, stating “We look forward to addressing these (charges) in court and are confident of a successful resolution for Sean and his mother.”
The arrest warrants provide scant details regarding the specifics of their alleged crimes. However, the documents claim that between October 2022 and March 2023, the duo stole nearly $500,000 worth of jewellery, over $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from a Cadillac Escalade dealer, exceeding $100,000 from First Republic Bank, $86,000 from a customised bed manufacturer and smaller sums from other sources.
This is not the first time legal troubles have engulfed the musician and his mother. Kingston was already serving two years’ probation for trafficking stolen property, while Turner had previously pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2006, serving nearly 1.5 years in prison for stealing over $160,000.
The pair have also faced a string of civil lawsuits over unpaid debts. In 2015, a New York watchmaker successfully sued them for $356,000 for failing to pay for customised timepieces. Three years later, a New York jeweller won a $301,000 judgement after they scammed the store for nine items.
Most recently in February, a Florida entertainment systems company sued Kingston for neglecting to settle a $120,000 balance from a $150,000 bill for installing a mammoth 232-inch television at his home. Allegedly, Kingston had falsely claimed he and pop star Justin Bieber would advertise for the company if given favourable terms, which never materialised.
