Popular American singer Sean Kingston, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, has been indicted for his alleged involvement in a $1 million wire fraud scheme.
Kingston and his mother, Janice Turner, were charged in a Miami federal court on Friday.
The Daily Mail reported that, according to the indictment, the scheme involved making fraudulent payments through banks that were never processed, resulting in the accumulation of over $1 million in property.
Kingston and Turner have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison on each count.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida stated, “The defendants unjustly enriched themselves by falsely representing that they had executed bank wire or other monetary payment transfers.”
These payments never went through, allowing Kingston and his mother to obtain $1 million in property without payment.
Kingston was previously arrested nearly two months ago in California, shortly after a SWAT team raided his rented mansion in Southwest Ranches, Florida.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office stated that the “Beautiful Girls” artist was taken into custody on a Florida warrant for numerous fraud and theft charges. His mother was also arrested that day.
Following his arrest in May, Robert Rosenblatt, an attorney representing Kingston and his mother, told the Associated Press, “We are aware of some of the allegations being made against both of them. We look forward to addressing these in court and are confident of a successful resolution for Sean and his mother.”
After being indicted by a grand jury, Sean Kingston and his mother made their first appearance in a Miami federal court on Friday to face wire fraud charges, federal prosecutors announced. If convicted, they could spend decades in prison.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Kingston and his mother “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.”
When federal authorities checked the veracity of the money transfers, they found that “no such bank wire or other monetary payment transfers had been executed by the purported banks.”
In total, Kingston and his mother kept over $1 million in assets that they didn’t fully pay for, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
In May, Kingston and his mother were charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft, and related crimes, according to arrest warrants released by the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Kingston was arrested on May 23 at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in California’s Mojave Desert where he was performing.
He waived his right to fight the extradition and was returned to Florida. Turner was also taken into custody that same day when police raided a South Florida mansion her son had been renting.
The warrants in the case said that from October 2023 to March of this year, they stole almost $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from an Escalade dealer, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank, and $86,000 from the maker of customized beds.
At the time of his arrest, Kingston was on two years’ probation for trafficking stolen property. Turner had previously pleaded guilty in 2006 to bank fraud for stealing over $160,000 and served nearly 1 1/2 years in prison.
Bob Rosenblatt, an attorney for Kingston and his mother, said in early June, “Well, I don’t know who is claiming they owe money. You know, we were aware of the watches, we are aware of the TV issue. If there are other issues I’m not sure about… It’s a breach of contract. There’s no fraud here. There’s no organized fraud at all.”
Rosenblatt planned to file a not-guilty plea and ask for a jury trial. He said at the time that he was “very confident” that Kingston would get the charges against him dismissed.
