Sean Kingston, the recording artist known for his hit songs “Beautiful Girls” and “Take You There,” was sentenced on Friday to three and a half years in federal prison after being convicted of a $1 million fraud scheme. The sentencing, which took place in South Florida, saw Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Paul Anderson, immediately taken into custody.
Kingston, 35, and his mother, Janice Eleanor Turner, were both found guilty by a federal jury in March of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud. U.S. Judge David Leibowitz, who handed down Kingston’s sentence, had previously sentenced Turner to five years in prison last month.
Following his prison term, Kingston will be placed on three years of supervised release. Judge Leibowitz also ordered that a restitution hearing be held within 90 days to determine what he owes his victims.
The convictions stem from a series of events that led to the arrests of Kingston and his mother in May 2024. A SWAT team raided Kingston’s rented mansion in Fort Lauderdale, where Turner was taken into custody. Kingston himself was arrested at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in California’s Mojave Desert, where he was performing.
Born in Florida and raised in Jamaica, Sean Kingston rose to international fame at age 17 with his 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls,” which famously sampled Ben E. King’s 1961 song “Stand By Me.”