’00s hitmaker Sean Kingston and his mother Janice Turner have both been arrested and charged with fraud. As TMZ reports, a SWAT team raided Kingston’s house in Southwest Ranches, Florida yesterday morning. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office served arrest and search warrants, and Turner was taken into custody at Kingston’s home. Kingston himself was arrested later that evening in Fort Irwin, California, where he’d just performed a show at a military base. The Sheriff’s Office tells CNN that both of them are facing “numerous fraud and theft charges.”
The raid was part of a breach of contract lawsuit. Ver Ver Entertainment, a company that makes giant LED-screen entertainment systems, claimed that Kingston, whose real name is Kisean Paul Anderson, offered to make promotional videos for the company with his former collaborator Justin Bieber, in exchange for a lower down payment on a a 232-inch TV and sound system. The company says he made a $30,000 down payment but didn’t make further payments or film that promotional video. TMZ has pictures of police dismantling and confiscating the entertainment system.
On his Instagram story, Kingston writes, “People love negative energy! I am good and so is my mother!.. my lawyers are handling everything as we speak.”
Sean Kingston hasn’t had a chart hit in more than a decade, but he went all the way to #1 with the 2007 song “Beautiful Girls.” Kingston was 17 at the time; he was the first artist born in the ’90s ever to top the Billboard Hot 100. Kingston also made the top 10 with the later tracks “Take You There” and “Fire Burning,” co-wrote Jason Derulo’s #1 hit “Whatcha Say,” and collaborated with Justin Bieber on the 2010 single “Eenie Meenie.” Recently, he’s been selling personalized videos on Cameo.
