The mother of jailed rapper Sean Kingston bonded out of jail on Sunday after spending three nights behind bars.
Janice Turner, 61, is charged with 8 counts of fraud and theft by deception. Kingston, 34, is facing 10 charges of fraud and theft, plus a probation violation.
Turner is also known as “Mama Kingston” on social media.
“This is not Ms. Turner’s first time with this type of conduct,” a prosecutor told the judge at her bond hearing. “She has a 2005 federal conviction for bank fraud where she was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison.”
“There are no violent priors, this case is not violent in nature, she doesn’t pose a threat to the community,” her attorney, Sam Stark, said in open court.
The judge upheld Turner’s stiff $160,000 bond due to her criminal past. Instead of paying the standard 10%, she had to come up with the full amount of her bond in cash or use someone’s property as collateral.
The judge also ordered her attorney to prove the $160,000 bond payment is not from an illegal source.
Turner and Kingston were arrested separately on Thursday, May 23, following a SWAT raid on his Southwest Ranches, Florida home that morning.
Broward County Sheriff’s deputies served arrest and search warrants at the rented 14,000 square foot mansion near Fort Lauderdale.
The search warrants were part of a stolen goods case in which Kingston is accused of scamming an electronics store out of a high end home theater worth $150,000.
Authorities arrested Turner at the house on Thursday morning. Kingston was arrested hours later after he and his DJ performed a concert at a California Army Base.
Cell phone video showed law enforcement arresting Kingston at an outdoor music festival.
Prior to his arrest, Kingston wrote a now-deleted message on his Instagram Stories.
“People love negative energy! I am good and so is my mother! My lawyers are handling everything as we speak,” he wrote.
Kingston is currently being held without bail in a San Bernardino County, California detention center while awaiting extradition back to South Florida.
According to Dennis Card, a lawyer representing Ver Ver Entertainment, Kingston and Ver Ver entered into a contract to buy a 232-inch “Colossal TV” and sound system in late October.
Kingston wired a $30,000 down payment to the store in November. He agreed to pay $47,827.16 after the TV and sound system were installed in the house.
Additionally, Kingston promised to record promo videos with pop singer Justin Bieber worth over $38,000.
But attorney Card said no further payments were made by Kingston and he did not post the promo videos on social media as promised.
Robert Rosenblatt, an attorney for Kingston and Turner, said on Friday, “We look forward to addressing these (charges) in court and are confident of a successful resolution for Sean and his mother.”
Kingston had a No. 1 hit with “Beautiful Girls” in 2007. The music video for “Beautiful Girls” was viewed over 1.2 billion times on YouTube (watch below).
