Sean Kingston will serve time in prison for his part in a federal wire-fraud scheme. Kingston was sentenced to 42 months, or three and a half years, in prison on August 15, per AP News. Born Kisean Anderson, he was convicted in March alongside his mother, Janice Turner, on one count of conspiracy and five counts of wire fraud. He had been facing up to 20 years. His mother was sentenced to five years for her part in the scheme last month.
Kingston and Turner were convicted of defrauding several businesses — including a jewelry store, a bed company, a car dealership, and a luxury-TV company — by receiving products before payment. Then, they would text fake receipts for fraudulent wire transfers. Items procured in this manner included a bulletproof Escalade, high-end watches, and a 19-foot LED television. Defense argued that Kingston’s maturity had frozen as a teenager when he became famous with the song “Beautiful Girls” in 2007, at the age of 17. The defense claimed he had almost no knowledge of his finances.
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Kingston apologized to the court before his sentencing, AP News reports. That, combined with his choice not to testify at their trial in March, may have contributed to a shorter prison sentence than that of his mother, whose testimony Judge David Leibowitz said amounted to obstruction, according to NBC News. Leibowitz said her testimony “makes it impossible to believe she wouldn’t do anything for her son.”
