Rapper Sean Kingston and his mother, Janice Turner, who were both convicted earlier this year of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, must pay $38,500 to one victim whose business they defrauded.
The singer of the 2000s hit “Beautiful Girls,” whose real name is Kisean Anderson, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in federal prison last month while Turner was sentenced to five years in July.
The scheme defrauded businesses of more than $1 million in luxury merchandise from April 2023 through March 2024, including a bullet-proof Escalade, jewelry and a 232-inch TV, prosecutors said in a news release in April after their conviction. Kingston would contact businesses on social media looking to buy high-end merchandise, then after negotiating a deal, “utilized his celebrity status to lull the victims into a false sense of security” by promising to advertise their products in his social media posts or by “name-dropping high-profile celebrities” as potential other clients.
When it came time to pay, Kingston or Turner would text victims fraudulent wire receipts that Turner obtained, though actually “the receipts were fake and no money had ever been transferred from legitimate accounts,” prosecutors said. Some victims were paid after filing lawsuits or after law enforcement got involved.
A SWAT team raided their mansion in Southwest Ranches in May 2024.
A U-Haul is seen leaving Sean Kingston’s Southwest Ranches home in the 4600 block of Southwest 178th Avenue on Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Turner’s attorney Humberto Dominguez argued for a lesser sentence for his client in July, emphasizing that she and her son paid back many of the businesses and that some never lost money at all, the Sun Sentinel previously reported.
A restitution hearing was scheduled for Oct. 16 to determine an exact amount owed, but prosecutors wrote in a Sept. 18 motion that the “United States Attorney’s Office has been able to determine the actual amount of loss suffered by the victims in the instant case.”
As a result, U.S. District Judge David S. Leibowitz signed an order, agreed on by the defense and prosecution, that requires Kingston and Turner to pay $38,500.00 to one outstanding victim identified in the order only as B.C.
At the rapper’s sentencing hearing in August, Leibowitz initially ruled that while Kingston served his sentence, half of any salary he earns would be directed toward restitution and that 10% of his monthly gross earnings would be applied to pay victims after serving his sentence.
Kingston, 35, and Turner, 62, are both held in the Federal Detention Center Miami, Federal Bureau of Prisons records show.
