A prominent member of a secretive Utah polygamist sect and a Los Angeles businessman reputed to be a gangster allegedly teamed up on a $470-million fraud scheme.
On the surface it seems an odd partnership: a prominent member of a secretive Utah polygamist sect and the Armenian immigrant owner of a prosperous chain of Southern California truck stops.
According to prosecutors, Dermen and Kingston together used the money they made through the alleged fraud to go on a wild, four-year spending spree that included luxury homes in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, million-dollar European sports cars and a villa in Istanbul, Turkey, overlooking the Bosporus strait.Their fraudulent conduct, it is charged, had both domestic and international political implications.
Kingston was CEO of Washakie Renewable Energy Co., which was at the core of the alleged massive fraud to get federal tax credits for what the company falsely claimed was biofuel produced in its Utah refinery.
Dermen, the only one of the original five defendants to face trial, is charged with 10 felonies that could put him in prison for life, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Like Jacob Kingston, Dermen has been jailed under intense security since he was arrested in August 2018.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Geragos claims that it was his client, not the Kingstons, who was led into a scheme orchestrated by Jacob Kingston. In his opening statement and in his cross examination of Kingston, the attorney also spent much time dwelling on the practice of polygamy in the Kingston family sect, saying that sect leader Paul Kingston, Jacob’s uncle, has more than 20 wives and countless children. Jacob Kingston, listed as Number 95 in the sect hierarchy, testified to having three wives and 10 children.
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