The federal fraud trial against Sean Kingston, 35, and his mother, Janice Turner, began Monday, March 24, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The two are facing charges after defrauding business owners of more than $1 million dollars. Officials allege they bought luxury items such as vehicles, jewelry, and more with false documents.
Kingston and Turner face one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud. They also face additional state charges.
Authorities arrested the mother-son duo on the same day last May on warrants. Authorities handcuffed the “Beautiful Girls” singer, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, during his concert at an Army training base in California. In addition to raiding the Southwest Ranches mansion Kingston was renting, officers arrested Turner there.
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According to CBS News, TV company, Ver Ver Entertainment, filed a complaint against Kingston in February 2024. Ver Ver accused Kingston of never fully paying off the 232-inch television and sound set worth $150,000. Kingston allegedly promised the company that he would do promotional videos with singer Justin Bieber, but that never happened. He paid them only $30,000 to install the set but failed to pay the remaining balance in full after installation.
Kingston and Turner also had 10 criminal charges for conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, and identity theft. The “Beat It” singer is additionally charged with a probation violation.
Their warrants revealed that from October 2023 to March this year, they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from several companies. This includes taking $480,000 in jewelry, over $200,000 from Bank of America, nearly $160,000 from Cadillac Escalade, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank, and $86,000 from a bed company.
Even that wasn’t the artist and his mother’s first encounter with legal trouble with theft.
Authorities took Kingston into custody while he was already serving a two-year probation for trafficking stolen property. Since 2015, Kingston has been accused several times of obtaining jewelry or luxury watches and not paying for them.
His mother, on the other hand, served close to one and a half years in prison for stealing $160,000 in a bank fraud case.
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