Police in California arrested rapper Sean Kingston while he performed onstage at an Army base on Thursday.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Kingston was arrested on a Florida warrant as part of a stolen goods case. He was taken into custody while performing at Fort Irwin, an Army base, about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
Earlier in the day, SWAT teams and dozens of deputies raided Kington’s 14,000-square foot rented mansion in Florida and arrested his mother, Janice Turner. The 61-year-old business woman, known as “Mama Kingston,” was taken into custody on “fraud and theft charges”.
According to DailyMail.com, the raid was part of a legal battle over $150,000 in stolen goods.
A company called Ver Ver Entertainment sued Kingston over a high end entertainment system that was installed in the house but never paid for.
Dennis Card, an attorney for Ver Ver Entertainment was outside the house during the raid.
Card claims that Kingston bought a 232-inch “Colossal TV” on credit with a low down payment. He promised Ver Ver Entertainment that Justin Bieber would do commercials for them.
“[Justin Bieber] is 100 percent not involved in this,” Card said. “He had the misfortune of doing some work in the past with Sean, and Sean drops his name like crazy.”
“He basically has a sales pitch that he goes through to defraud people. He induces them into giving him really expensive things,” Card said. “We know that our property is inside this house right here. So as soon as the raid takes place we are going to have a crew of people in there to de-assemble [sic] it and take it back to its rightful owner,” Card told WSVN.
Half a dozen jewelers around the country have accused Kingston of stealing from them. Kingston has been ordered to pay over $1 million to jewelers.
“He is stealing the property itself, he has a standardized script that he gives people, which is that he’s a recording artist… and that he wants to purchase these things, but he never pays for anything,” Card said.
Card says Kingston “gets the stuff and that’s the end of the story. He does it over and over and over.”
