Rapper Sean Kingston and His Mom Arrested

Rapper Sean Kingston was arrested in California on fraud charges Thursday, several hours after a SWAT team raided his rented South Florida mansion and carted away a van load of items, the AP reports. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said Kingston was arrested without incident on a Florida warrant in the area of Fort Irwin, an Army base in the desert about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Earlier in the day, Broward detectives arrested his 61-year-old mother, Janice Turner, during the raid of the rapper's 14,000-square foot home in Southwest Ranches, a well-off Fort Lauderdale suburb that is home to many celebrities and professional athletes. Kingston is a Jamaican-American rapper best known for his 2007 No. 1 single "Beautiful Girls"; another hit, "Take You There"; and his collaboration with Justin Bieber on the song "Eenie Meenie."

• Kingston will be held in California pending extradition to Florida. His mother was being held at the Broward jail Thursday night on $160,000 bond.
• "People love negative energy!" Kingston had posted on Instagram earlier Thursday. "I am good, and so is my mother! … My lawyers are handling everything as we speak." The post was later taken down. Robert Rosenblatt, an attorney representing the rapper and his mother, said, "we are aware of some of the allegations" being made against the two. "We look forward to addressing these in court and are confident of a successful resolution for Shawn and his mother."

• An attorney who witnessed Kingston's mother's arrest said the detentions are partly related to a lawsuit he filed against Kingston in February accusing him of defrauding a Florida company that installed in his home a 232-inch television—approximately 17 feet by 9.5 feet. In the lawsuit, Ver Ver Entertainment says Kingston contacted the company in September about purchasing the $150,000 television. Kingston allegedly told the owners that if they would agree to a lower down payment and give him credit, he and Bieber would do commercials for them—instead, the rapper allegedly paid just $30,000 and never made any more payments (or commercials) after the TV was installed. According to the lawsuit, Kingston no longer has a working relationship with Bieber, and the attorney says Kingston just "drops his name like crazy."
• Florida Department of Corrections records show Kingston is currently on two years' probation for trafficking stolen property. Further information on that conviction could not be found. According to federal court records, his mother pleaded guilty in 2006 to bank fraud for stealing over $160,000 and served nearly 1.5 years in prison.

(More Sean Kingston stories.)