UPDATED 5/24, 12:30 a.m. ET: Sean Kingston was arrested in California "hours after" the raid on his Florida home. He was taken into custody following a performance at the Fort Irwin Army base in the Mojave Desert.
TMZ reports the 34-year-old "cooperated" and was set to be booked at San Bernardino County Jail thanks to a Broward County Sheriff's Office warrant on charges of fraud and theft.
See original story below.
Sean Kingston’s mom was taken into custody following a raid on the artist’s Florida rental home.
According to NBC 6 Miami, Broward County Sheriff’s deputies and the Davie Police SWAT team executed a search warrant Thursday concerning a civil complaint against Kingston, born Kisean Paul Anderson. Authorities also confirmed Kingston’s mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, was also taken into custody on multiple fraud and theft charges.
Attorney Dennis Card told the outlet that the raid was related to a civil lawsuit filed by Ver Ver Entertainment. The plaintiff claims Kingston owes $150,000 for an entertainment installation system, including a 232-inch TV.
“He likes having bling, he likes showing off, he’s a showman,” said Card, who represents the company. “My client has a $150,000 television sound system that’s in there, there’s also about $1 million worth of watches that are in there, there’s a $80,000 custom bed that was ordered. This is an organized systematic fraud.”
The attorney continued: “He’s got basically a script, he says that he works with Justin Bieber, and that he obviously puts on a big show here, this is a rental house, he doesn’t own it, and he lures people using his celebrity into having them release things without him paying for it and then he simply never pays.”
The raid occurred more than a year after Dream Watch sued Kingston for more than $900,000. The high-end jewelry company accused the “Beautiful Girls” singer of failing to pay for two designer timepieces: a $534,000 Richard Mille and a $378,000 Phillippe Calibre.
“He’s 100 percent a scammer,” Card told NBC 6 Miami. “He’s on felony probation right now for trafficking in stolen property, he’s got judgements against him for procuring more than one million in watches without paying for them. This is just an ongoing pattern for Sean.”
It’s unclear if Kingston was at the Florida home during the police raid; however, he addressed the matter in a Thursday Instagram Story.
"People love negative energy!" he wrote. "I am good and so is my mother! My lawyers are handling everything as we speak."
Stay tuned as more information becomes available.
