Source: Albert L. Ortega / Getty
Rapper Sean Kingston might be having a little family time behind prison walls.
Baller Alert reports that the “Beautiful Girls” singer and his mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, have been indicted on federal charges for scamming businesses out of upwards of $1 million. If found guilty, the dynamic duo could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
Law enforcement arrested both Kingston and Turner on May 23 for their alleged participation in several schemes to defraud victims out of expensive jewelry, cars and other goods with falsified documents. They appeared before a Miami grand jury, which indicted the pair for pretending to remit payments and then keeping items they never actually bought.
The pair made off with $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from a Cadillac Escalade dealer, $500,000 in jewelry and another $100,000 from First Republic Bank, the Associated Press reports. They also managed to scam a custom bed maker out of an additional $86,000.
Kingston and Turner also faced accusations of fraudulent activity in the past. The Jamaican-born artist is currently serving a two-year probation for selling stolen property, and his mother pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2016. She served nearly 2 years in prison for stealing over $160,000 in funds.
An attorney for one of the victims claims that Kingston uses his proximity to fame to assist in his scams by way of,
“basically a script, he says that he works with Justin Bieber, and obviously puts on a big show here, this is a rental house, he doesn’t own it, and he lures people using his celebrity into having them release things without him paying for it and then he simply never pays.”
Kingston and Turner’s formal charges are one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five counts of wire fraud charges. The “Eenie Meenie” singer still seems unbothered because he’s currently promoting his own bitcoin on his social media accounts.
Seems legit.
