A Florida jeweler took the stand Wednesday in Sean Kingston’s ongoing $1 million fraud trial, telling jurors he was deceived by the singer and his mother in an alleged luxury watch scam, NBC 6 reports.
Moshe Edery testified that he gave Kingston a $285,000 Audemars Piguet watch in good faith, after being promised payment and business opportunities. But the wire transfer he received from Kingston’s mother, Janice Turner, allegedly turned out to be fake.
“I’m going to have you at all my video shoots and red carpets,” Kingston is heard promising in a voice memo played for the court. In another message, he told Edery, “I’m with you for life.”
But the promised payment never came. Instead, Edery said Turner sent him what appeared to be a confirmation screenshot for a wire transfer. When he took the document to the bank, he was told it didn’t look authentic.
“I’m being scammed,” Edery recalled thinking.
Edery said he gave Kingston the watch before payment because of the singer’s celebrity status and the professional opportunities he claimed he would provide. He said the fallout from the deal damaged his reputation and ultimately cost him his job.
During cross-examination, Kingston’s legal team questioned why Edery didn’t seek approval from his employer before handing over the expensive timepiece. He responded that employees had access to the safe and were trusted to make deals on behalf of the business.
Kingston and Turner were indicted last year on five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors say the pair used fake documents to acquire over $1 million in goods, including jewelry, luxury cars, and electronics, between October 2023 and March 2024.
The singer was arrested in California in May 2024, the same day Turner was detained during a raid on the South Florida mansion he was renting.
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