Rapper and singer Sean Kingston and his mother have been accused of committing fraud worth more than $1 million (£774 million).
The Beautiful Girls singer, 34, and his mother Janice Turner, 61, are accused of participating in a scheme to defraud victims of high-end specialty vehicles, jewelry and other property through the use of fraudulent documents. .
In May, a SWAT team in Florida raided the singer’s rented mansion in a celebrity-favorite Fort Lauderdale suburb and arrested Turner for Fraud and theft linked to the installation of a gigantic television..
Kingston was arrested that same day at Fort Irwin, a US Army base in California’s Mojave Desert, where he was performing, and charged with similar crimes at the state level.
The couple made their first appearances in federal court in Miami on Friday.
According to the federal indictment, mother and son falsely claimed that they had executed wire transfers and other payment transfers for high-end items when such transactions had not occurred.
Police said they then kept more than $1 million in fraudulently purchased items despite failing to pay for them.
From October 2023 to March of this year, the couple allegedly defrauded nearly $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from a Cadilac Escalade dealer, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank and $86,000 from custom bed manufacturer.
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Robert Rosenblatt, the attorney representing Kingston and his mother, did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
He previously said they looked forward to addressing the charges and were “confident of a successful resolution.”
Jamaican-American artist Kingston achieved number one with Beautiful Girls in 2007. He then collaborated with Justin Bieber on the song Eenie Meenie.
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