Rapper and singer Sean Kingston and his mother, Janice Turner, were back in a federal courtroom Tuesday as jurors listened to business owners testify that the pair defrauded them of more than $1 million.
The performer, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, 34, appeared in a dark suit and white shirt, showing no indication of his status as a celebrity with an inescapable hit song from 2007, “Beautiful Girls.”
Kingston and Turner both deny the charges, which led to a raid on their Southwest Ranches home last May.
Since October 2023, Kingston and Turner are accused of defrauding a jewelry business, a luxury bed company, a used luxury and exotic car dealership, and a luxury microLED TV company, arrest warrants said.
The TV company owner, Ariel Mateos, said he was happy to include Kingston on Instagram posts until Kingston stopped paying him installments for a 200-inch television put up in the Southwest Ranches house.
“When he didn’t pay us, we took off the pictures and the ads,” Mateos said.
The trial at the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale is expected to last until at least Thursday in front of United States District Judge David S. Liebowitz.
“Beautiful Girls,” which laid his lyrics over the musical track of “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King, helped make Kingston famous and was the high point of his career, though he did have lesser hits in the years that followed.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457. Follow him on Threads.net/@rafael.olmeda.
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