Sean Kingston and his mother have been indicted for fraud.
The “Beautiful Girls” hitmaker and his mother, Janice Turner, appeared in federal court on July 19 after a grand jury in Miami returned an indictment that accused the pair of falsely claiming they had sent bank transfers for luxury items.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, the rapper’s and his mother’s charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud stem from their alleged involvement in “a scheme to defraud victim sellers of high-end specialty vehicles, jewelry and other goods purchased by the defendants through the use of fraudulent documents.”
The office stated the pair “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 nonpayment. Through the execution of this scheme, the defendants obtained in excess of $1 million in property.”
The pair are accused of having stolen almost $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,000 from Bank of America, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank, $160,000 from a Cadillac Escalade dealer and $86,000 from a maker of customized beds.
They were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five of wire fraud. If convicted, they face up to 20 years behind bars for each offense.
In May, Kingston was arrested at an army base in California — where he was performing — and extradited to Florida after his home in that state was raided. His mother was also arrested at that residence.
