A Florida state court sentenced U.S. rapper Sean Kingston to three and a half years in prison Friday for defrauding more than $1 million in the purchase of luxury goods, according to court records.
The 35-year-old artist, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, was charged with five counts of wire fraud for acquiring all kinds of goods without paying for them using forged documents.
His mother, Janice Turner, was sentenced to five years in prison last month on the same charges. Both faced a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
The Sean Kingston scam
To carry out the scam, the two used fake bank transfer receipts to trick the sellers into believing they had made the electronic payment for the merchandise, assuring them that the money would reach their accounts in the next few days, according to the lawsuit.
They even acquired a luxury SUV, jewelry, expensive watches and a TV the size of a wall.
Kingston was arrested along with his mother in May last year.
During the hearing in Florida, the rapper’s lawyer indicated that his client was “a soft guy who grew up poor when he rose to fame overnight,” with “no idea how to run a business (and) no idea how much money is in his bank account.”
Kingston is the author of songs like ‘Beautiful Girls’ or ‘Eenie Meenie’. The first one, released in 2007 and which launched him to fame, remained for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 list in 2007.
