The mother of rapper and singer Sean Kingston was sentenced to five years in federal prison Wednesday, three months after a jury found her and her son guilty of defrauding businesses of over $1 million.
Janice Turner, 62, helped her celebrity son avoid paying for an array of luxury items, including private charter flights, designer cars, jewelry, expensive watches and even rent for their sprawling Southwest Ranches home by sending fake wire receipts, according to prosecutors. While some of the businesses were ultimately paid, a total of about $1.1 million remains missing.
Standing before U.S. Judge David Leibowitz in handcuffs and a red prison jumpsuit, Turner said, through tears, that her only goal was to help her son.
“My intention was just to keep my son afloat in this difficult industry,” she said in the Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom. “They’ve used him, they’ve abused him … I’m pleading for you for your mercy. Mercy for me and my son.”
But Leibowitz said that Turner and Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Anderson, engaged in “wanton lies and wanton leveraging their status as celebrities” over the last few years, and then he issued the five-year sentence.
The sentence is higher than the 2½ years Turner’s attorney Humberto Dominguez had asked for but lower than the more than eight years requested by prosecutors. Leibowitz said that the sentence would have been “far less” if Turner had not lied on the stand when she claimed that she only sent the fake receipts to “buy time” to pay the businesses back.
Turner has remained in prison since the two were convicted in March. Kingston, who is out on bond, will face his own sentencing in August.
Turner’s sentencing hearing began in the morning and went late into the afternoon as prosecutors sought to increase Turner’s sentence and Dominguez sought to reduce it.
In arguing for the lesser sentence, Dominguez portrayed Turner as a devoted mother who participated in the fraud scheme only to make her son happy, not herself. He also repeatedly emphasized that Turner and Kingston eventually paid back many of the businesses while some of the businesses never lost money at all, despite prosecutors’ arguments that they should face a steeper sentence because their “intended” fraud amounts to over $3 million with over 20 different victims.
“Judge, there is nothing Ms. Turner got out of this other than trouble,” Dominguez said. “None of these watches were for her … there was actually nothing in it for her except that she made the huge mistake of helping out her son.”
In filings, Dominguez added that his client has been a “pillar in her community” and a motherly figure who is often referred to as “Mama Kingston,” citing letters submitted to the judge on her behalf.
Prosecutors disputed this depiction of Turner.
“She is, quite simply, a thief,” Assistant State Attorney Marc Anton said, citing Turner’s prior history, which includes a 2005 conviction of bank fraud. He argued that Turner still has not admitted to the scheme and continues to “deceive” the court by saying she had the intention of paying the businesses back. He also emphasized that she benefitted from the fraudulently acquired items.
“She loved the high life, she loved living on Sean Kingston’s coattails,” Anton said. But the lifestyle was “a house of cards.”
The two are now nearly penniless. Kingston has had to resort to couch-surfing, Anton said, because “they have nothing.”
Turner will face three years of supervised release following her prison sentence, though she will likely be deported to Jamaica before that due to the criminal conviction, Dominguez said.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, he said he and his client have “mixed feelings” about the sentence. He maintained that Turner did what she did for her son.
“She loves him to death,” he said.
Kingston’s sentencing is set for Aug. 15 before the same judge.
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