OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:17 PM – Saturday, July 20, 2024
After being charged with wire fraud in a fraudulent scheme to purchase luxury goods, rapper Sean Kingston and his mother made their initial court appearance on Friday in a federal court in Florida.
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According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, a grand jury indicted Kingston, 34, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, and his mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the singer and his mother allegedly made false claims that they had completed bank wire transfers and other payments for expensive goods like jewelry and cars.
The state warrants say Kingston and Turner stole almost $500,000 in jewelry between October and March, along with over $200,000 from Bank of America and $100,000 from First Republic Bank, $160,000 from a dealer of Cadillac Escalade cars, and $86,000 from a company that makes custom beds.
According to the prosecution, Kingston would convince companies to “deviate from their regular business practices” and turn over the goods before getting paid in full.
“He’s got basically a script,” attorney Dennis Card, who filed a lawsuit against Kingston over stolen electronics, told NBC 6 Miami in May. “He says that he works with Justin Bieber. and he lures people using his celebrity into having them release things without him paying for it, and then he simply never pays.”
As Kingston prepared to perform at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in the Mojave Desert, he was taken into custody in May on the state’s charges. The same day, during a SWAT raid on her son’s rented Fort Lauderdale mansion, his mother was taken into custody.
According to reports, Kingston was already serving a two-year probation sentence for trafficking in stolen property. Based on court documents, his mother spent more than a year in jail after entering a guilty plea to bank fraud in 2006.
Court documents stated Kingston was freed on a $10,000 cash bond and Turner was freed on a $5,000 cash bond on Friday. August 9th is the date of their upcoming appearance in federal court.
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