Sean Kingston rose to immense fame some time ago thanks to his one-hit wonder of a song, “Beautiful Girls.” It proceeded to make him quite popular for a time, and the song still is great all these years since 2007 (yes, 2007). However, things are not currently going that well for Kingston and his mother. A jury just found them both guilty of wire fraud. This resulted in Kingston being sentenced to over three years in prison, followed by further time with supervised release. The case stemmed from luxury items that were supposed to be paid for via the aforementioned wire transfers, but were kept without anyone ever being paid. Reading about this got me thinking about why Kingston faced legal trouble while plenty of other wealthy folks have committed crimes and got away with it--or a metaphorical slap on the wrist. My main conclusion is that Sean Kingston tried to rip off the wrong people--rich people.
I’ve seen arguments made that Kingston is facing heavier consequences due to the fact he is a man of color, was born in America but raised in Jamaica (so he seems, "Foreign,") and other explanations. I understand the merit in all of them, but there are also plenty of folks of color or those who weren't born in America (regardless of where they were raised) who’ve been able to commit financial crimes and faced little to no prison time. The thing is, often those who are rich and seem to do questionable actions to get more money are often doing so at the expense of those who are what society considers, “Poor/disadvantaged/overlooked.”
Brett Favre committed all kinds of fraud with welfare. Major corporations like Amazon try to bust any attempts at unions, which is illegal but done brazenly, and the list goes on. The worst offenders usually face some criminal charges, or anyone who is unlucky enough to be the scapegoat can get in trouble. Still, even if Martha Stewart took the fall for a lot of people, she did not serve nearly as much time as she could have, and I’m saying that as someone who likes Martha Stewart. Unless you’re some of the worst examples possible of white collar crime, like Bernie Madoff or certain Enron executives, as long as you’re ripping off poor people, you can generally get away with it to a degree. When the rich turn on their own, however, there are actually consequences. Jeffrey Epstein was going to spill the beans on a whole list of people who assisted him in committing sex crimes, and he suddenly ended up dying from a suspicious suicide, to give a dramatic (and somewhat conspiracy theory-linked) example. My point is that as long as the top 1% are preying on the other 99%, people generally don’t have enough power/wherewithal/ability to stop them. Sean Kingston was stealing, and his one mistake (besides how you shouldn't commit a crime in the first place) was stealing from other rich people.
Oh, and none of this, of course, applies to those who aren’t already rich. If you’re living moderately comfortably or struggling, any kind of crime you commit could get you caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Once you enter that magical tax bracket of, "Rich," however? Well, then the rules change even if we want to believe America has justice for all in an equal fashion. I mean, if we really were a nation of (followed) laws, I don’t think a convicted felon who encouraged and attempted a coup of our country would’ve been able to even run for reelection as President, much less claim the office once more (seriously, Donald Trump sucks). America has a whole lot of things that work in theory. When put into practice, though, the sad truth is the rules can change. Sean Kingston committed theft via wire fraud and should have been in trouble for that, for sure! I’m not disputing such a fact. I’m just saying, if he hadn’t been stealing from other rich folks, I wonder if maybe he would’ve avoided doing time. In the end, it wasn’t the beautiful girls he needed to look out for; it was his own greed and the people it resulted in him targeting.
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