All language subtitles for American Greed s15e07 The Polygamis

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In this episode of American Greed, Jacob
Kingston is a high -ranking member of

the Order, the most powerful religious
sect you've never heard of.

I want to start by bearing my testimony
that this is the work of the Lord. The

feds say the Order controls an empire of
hundreds of businesses throughout the

American West.

allegedly worth hundreds of millions of
dollars.

Most of the members believe that they
work hard to make money for the order

because God's army is going to need to
be well -funded when Jesus comes.

But this deep -pocketed holy man has a
surprising partner, a shady fuel baron

who calls himself the Lion.

He's this very flashy figure, dresses in
very expensive clothes.

throws lavish parties, drives fancy
cars.

The polygamist and the lion steal
millions from the government in a

scheme until they are met by another
unlikely combo, tenacious federal agents

and a teenaged girl.

My dad has over 300 kids.

Tonight, an insider determined to break
away from the order and expose the

truth. I knew that this was my chance to
get out, and I had to take it, and I

couldn't look back.

She is privy to all the transactions
that happen within the order.

He started explaining that all these
businesses are connected and all these

people are connected. They're all part
of this cult.

A member of a fundamentalist polygamist
sect, a guy with three wives and 20

children, teams up with an immigrant
from Armenia.

to steal $500 million from the federal
government.

Doesn't get any more American than that.

On a cold morning just before dawn, 17
-year -old Mary Jacobs gets up and

dressed while her family sleeps.

Today is the day she decides to change
her life forever.

I remember getting up that morning
knowing that I was going to leave the

Mary Jacobs is escaping from her
parents, who would have her engaged to

her first cousin in two days.

The order.

believes in incestuous relationships to
keep their bloodline pure.

It's something that you grow up knowing
you're going to be married to somebody

in the family.

Working in the Order's accounting
office, Mary knows where the financial

are buried and holds key information
that could help to expose her secretive

family's alleged crimes.

And I remember when she came to me and
she said, okay, I'm ready.

I said, great.

Let's go right now.

Let's contact the FBI.

In the suburbs of Salt Lake City, the
streets are clean, the houses well kept,

and the neighbors are friendly.

It's also home to what has been called
the most powerful polygamist group in

America, the Order, also known as the
Kingston Group and officially the Davis

County Cooperative Society.

It's estimated 3 ,500 to 5 ,000 members
live in the Salt Lake Valley, blending

into the suburbs in family homes with
minivans in the driveway.

They don't live in compounds. They live
in regular neighborhoods. They work

regular jobs. They dress in regular
clothes.

You know, they appear outwardly like
just regular, ordinary folks.

The sect was founded in 1935 by a man
named Charles Eldon Kingston.

Today, seven brothers in the Kingston
line run the group.

Their supreme leader is Brother Paul
Kingston.

In 1995,

Mary Jacobs is born into the order. Her
father, David Kingston, is one of these

seven brothers.

Her mother is his half -sister.

Married in the order at age 15.

My mom was a fifth wife to David
Kingston.

He currently has 17 wives.

I am one of 15 children to my mom.

And my dad has over 300 kids in the Salt
Lake Valley, and he's just one person

in the order.

And the idea is they are organizing the
kingdom of God on earth.

under the order of heaven.

And it is very orderly. It's very number
-based.

So the men are ordered by number.

Their wives are attached to them by
number. And it's almost like the group

themselves as God's accounting system.

A numbered man in the order is somebody
who signs away everything that they will

ever make into the order.

They believe it's like a way to get into
heaven.

Over the last 100 years, the group's
members create an empire of businesses

real estate throughout the American
West.

They have many million -dollar
businesses. They have security

You've got coin and laundry businesses,
ice companies,

pawn shops.

And the idea is you build up these
businesses for the greater good to

wealth.

In addition to polygamy, the order
practices the voluntary consecration of

wealth, where all businesses and all
money is shared with the group.

Former member Michelle Michaels explains
the order's teaching.

If a child finds a penny on the ground,
the first thing that he should want to

do is turn it into the church, turn it
into the order.

He shouldn't even think about spending
that penny.

until after it goes to the order bank.

The order bank is what members call
their internal system that keeps track

income and spending for order members.

Mary Jacobs has been working at the
order's financial office since she was a

child. From the time I was seven years
old, I was preparing these financial

statements for every single member of
the order.

All of the transactions and anything
that an order member spends is recorded

those statements.

And then as I got older, I started
preparing the business financials.

And then I started helping prepare their
taxes for their different businesses.

Mary's older first cousin, Jacob
Kingston, also grows up in the order and

this culture of creating wealth and
prosperity for his people.

Jacob is a favored son, and before long,
his formal portrait joins the others

amongst the ranks of the numbered men.

He is number 95.

I want to start by bearing my testimony
that this is the work of the Lord and

that Brother Paul is the man on the wash
tower.

Jacob Kingston is one of the grandsons
of one of the founders of this sect, the

Kingston Group.

And according to their own beliefs, that
means that his bloodline goes directly

back to Jesus Christ himself.

So he's sort of been a bit of a prince
of the Kingston group ever since he was

born. And when he's 17, Jacob decides to
get married to his sweetheart, Sally.

As a good polygamist, Jacob takes other
wives and eventually winds up with a

total of three wives and around 20
children of his own.

In the early 2000s, Jacob enrolls in a
doctoral program in mechanical

engineering and begins to develop a new
business idea for the Order.

turning French fry grease into diesel
fuel.

To foster green energy, the U .S.
government pours billions into biofuels

form of tax credits.

It works out to roughly on the order of
$2 a gallon straight from the federal

government just for having made this
stuff. And then you get to sell the

and make whatever you make.

Jacob Kingston sets up a biodiesel
refinery on his father's ranch in

Utah. And by 2008, the Washakie
Renewable Energy Facility begins

vegetable oil, converting it into
biofuel, and then trying to sell it. For

first few years, however, business is
terrible.

All the places where they can source the
actual vegetable oil are a long ways

away. So they wind up having to truck
vegetable oil in from the Midwest.

It's expensive, right? They have to
truck all this stuff way out to their

in the middle of nowhere, where they do
indeed convert it into biodiesel, but

then they have to again truck it from
there to wherever the buyers are.

With high expenses and low sales,
profits are zero.

Until Jacob Kingston devises a plan to
turn the company around.

He decides if he can't actually produce
and sell the biofuel, He'll pretend like

he is.

Utah was a terrible place to make
biodiesel, but as it turns out, it was a

place to commit fraud.

And with the right documentation, Uncle
Sam will never notice a thing.

He gets in touch with some other really
shady operators in this world of

biodiesel. Jacob pretends to make
biodiesel.

sells it to them, they pretend to buy it
from him, and then sell it on down the

line, and they pull in a couple of
million dollars in federal tax credits.

So Jacob clearly thinks, wow, this beats
doing business the legitimate way.

Kingston enlists his brother Isaiah, his
first wife Sally, and his mother

Rachel, all employees of Washakie
Renewable Energy, to help him falsify

documents and cook the books.

The paperwork appears to check out. The
IRS and the EPA process the invoices,

and over the next few years, Jacob
Kingston collects government checks

about $10 million.

The Kingstons had been engaged in this
fraud scheme to steal money from the U

.S. Treasury for a couple of years.

They were doing pretty good at it.

Up next.

See the unholy alliance that turns a $10
million scam into a billion -dollar

empire of greed.

Jacob Kingston, member of the Order, had
this giant mansion and parked in the

driveway are a chrome Lamborghini and a
gold Ferrari.

Jacob Kingston is the public face of
Washakie Renewable Energy, serving as

of the biofuel company.

But privately, he is a member of the
secretive religious sect, The Order, and

plugging away at an ever -growing fraud
scheme, buying cheap blended oil and

tricking the IRS into paying out
millions.

They fake up paperwork to make it look
like what they really bought was

vegetable oil and that they converted it
into biodiesel.

They claim all the tax credits, cha
-ching.

And then they're going to sell it to
buyers in India.

700 ,000 gallons of biodiesel are
shipped off to India.

But by the time the ship arrives, the
buyer is out of business.

What's he going to do with this stuff?

Jacob sends his salespeople all over the
place like...

Find me somebody who's willing to buy
700 ,000 gallons of possibly rancid

biodiesel. Who's going to buy something
like that?

Who's going to buy something like that
is Lev Derman, a .k .a. The Lion.

Lev Derman likes to call himself The
Lion.

The Lion is born in Armenia, immigrates
to L .A. as a teen.

and has close ties to Turkey.

His original name is Levon Termenjian,
but he changes it to Lev Aslan Derman,

Aslan meaning lion in Turkish.

And all of his businesses are called
Lion Trucking, Lion Fuel, or he's got a

couple of gas stations that are called
Noil Gas, Lion Backwards, right?

The lions are his image. Everywhere he
goes, he has sculptures of lions,

pictures of lions. He tells people, Call
me the lion.

And he really carries himself with a lot
of swagger. He likes to dress really

flashy. He drives Lamborghinis. He's got
a Bugatti. He's got an armored SUV.

He's got an office on Rodeo Drive and
travels around by private jet.

He lives in a very different world from
poor Jacob Kingston, who grew up in a

house with seven kids in two bedrooms.

When the lion learns of Kingston's cut
-rate boatload of questionable oil, he

says, I'll take it.

So not only is Derman going to buy the
fuel, they're going to fake up all this

paperwork so that they can claim
millions of dollars in tax credits. They

couple of million dollars.

Now they're in business together.

Once Kingston and Derman are in business
together, Washakie Renewable Energy's

relatively small -time fraud operation
suddenly goes boom.

What changed for the Kingstons and their
fraud scheme once they met Lev Derman

is that they got to a new stratosphere
of fraud.

And once Lev Derman got involved and the
conspiracy continued under his

tutelage, the amounts of money are mind
-blowing.

The unlikely partners go all in,
shipping and trucking low -grade fuel

the world to make it look like real
buying, selling, and biofuel conversion

going on.

There was just a shell game, shuffling
around large amounts of dirty oil,

claiming that this was something good
for the environment and something good

the nation.

Prior to working with Derman, the
Kingstons submitted claims for IRS and

credit payments.

totaling about $41 million.

Within five years of meeting Derman,
their claims total a staggering $1 .1

billion. And by 2015, $511 million of
that had been paid out.

This is cash in hand. These are checks
drafted from the United States Treasury

that are sent to the Kingstons and their
associates.

The value of our order standards.

While still intimately tied to the
order, Jacob Kingston is forging a high

-profile path to keep up with his
unlikely business partner in crime, the

a .k .a. Lev Derman, a .k .a. Levon
Tremensian.

After all, why orchestrate a billion
-dollar cash scam if you're not going to

have a little fun?

The two of them are giving each other
presents of Rolex watches worth north of

$100 ,000.

They're giving each other...

Maseratis and Bugattis.

At one point, Dermot shows up at a
Kingston family picnic in a chrome

Lamborghini, comes around to the picnic,
says hi to everybody, and then just

hands the keys to Jake and says, here,
this is yours.

Through shell companies and offshore
accounts, Terminzian purchases a luxury

hotel, a $12 million yacht, and a
waterfront mansion in Huntington Beach,

California.

For his birthday, Jacob Kingston
presents Derman with a $1 .8 million

Veyron. And Tremendian, in turn, buys
Jacob Kingston a $3 .5 million mansion

Sandy, Utah.

One of the really foundational beliefs
of the order is to live humbly.

Unfortunately, that tenet doesn't
translate to leadership.

So someone like Jacob Kingston, who
is...

High up in the hierarchy of the church,
he lives in gated mansion communities,

driving Bugattis.

Kingston travels the world in style,
investing in foreign enterprises.

Standing for a photo wearing a $2 ,000
suit with the president of Turkey, the

once humble polygamist has risen to
unfathomable heights.

Next.

To keep all this going, Jacob Kingston
is paying more and more to the lion's so

-called umbrella of protection.

And the cost is high.

LeVon Tremendian is increasingly holding
him in the palm of his hand, telling

him, you will do exactly what I tell
you, because otherwise, you're going

for good.

It's halftime at a Utah Jazz game, and
CEO Jacob Kingston is center court.

As a $2 million a year sponsor of the
team, he watches as his company promo

fills the jumbotron.

Sun, water, earth.

The miracle of our planet is that she
seems to take care of us as we take care

of her. It's an extraordinary synergy
Washakie Renewable Energy is built upon.

But what no one knows is that the
Kingston's business plan has mainly

ripping off the government.

The order traditionally has tried to
keep a very low profile, where Jacob

Kingston decided to do the exact
opposite.

He tried to have Washakie's name up
everywhere in Utah. Here he was claiming

the IRS that his company was producing
millions and then hundreds of millions

gallons of biodiesel. And so in order to
do that, he had to project the image of

a successful company.

That supposedly successful company is
being paid hundreds of millions of

from the U .S. Treasury.

But the huge claims are raising some red
flags.

By 2015, the company is getting audited
by the IRS and the EPA opens an

investigation as well.

There is an IRS auditor sitting.

in Washakie offices, going through all
the fraudulent paperwork that they've

created and asking for more paperwork,
which Kingston family members are

furiously in the background creating
more and more false paperwork to get

IRS auditor off of their back.

If Jacob Kingston is concerned, however,
it doesn't slow down the fraud.

After all, Kingston trusts that the lion
will protect him.

Levon Tremendian claims to have a vast
network of law enforcement agents and

corrupt officials on his payroll, all of
whom make up an impenetrable umbrella

of protection for those paying up enough
to stand under it.

One of the reasons that Jacob thought he
was fine committing this incredibly

brazen fraud was that Derman kept
telling him, I have all kinds of cops.

and prosecutors and government officials
on my payroll, and they're going to

protect us no matter what happens.

The way they split their fraud proceeds
is that Kingston gets 25 % and

Tremendian gets 25%. Jacob Kingston
believes that the other 50 % is going to

umbrella of protection.

The umbrella of protection is both a
shield and a sword. It's protecting him

from the Fed.

But it's indebting him further and
further to LeVon Tremendian.

And LeVon Tremendian is increasingly
holding him in the palm of his hand,

telling him, you will do exactly what I
tell you, because otherwise you're going

away for good.

What Tremendian is telling Jacob
Kingston is to send more and more money

Turkey for safekeeping to the tune of
more than $130 million.

Levan Tremendjian knows that at some
point Jacob Kingston is going to be

but Levan Tremendjian's plan is that he
will never be caught. And if he needs to

flee, he will get on his private jet,
fly over to Istanbul, and live out his

days with all the hundreds of millions
of dollars in fraud money that they've

made together.

And although the bulk of the $500
million in fraud proceeds is going to

lion, Jacob Kingston is still funneling
plenty of his share of the illegal

profits to the order.

True to the practice of consecrating
wealth, Jacob steers at least $30

into the order's coffers. Like, whatever
Jacob needs to do, let him do it. But

it's working out great for all of us
here at the order. There's tons of money

coming in.

Everybody's happy.

Next, the partner's umbrella has
protected them from outside elements.

But what if their biggest threat is from
within?

Mary Jacobs has never known life outside
the order.

Until she's 17, and her parents enroll
her in a local community college for

accounting classes to help her with her
job at the Order's financial center.

My mom and my dad told me that I was
going to go to college and get my

associates in business.

And then by the time I'm done with that,
I should be engaged or married.

We were going to school so that we could
better help grow the Order.

Mary is allowed to take classes only
under strict supervision.

But despite the tight controls, she
catches the eye of fellow student Brian

Nelson.

I was talking with a friend and we
walked into the study hall and I saw

woman in the distance and it was Mary
and I just thought she was beautiful.

So I went up and talked to her and Mary
and I just hit it off right away.

Even though Mary is chaperoned to school
every day by her brother, she finds

time during the day to sneak away and
talk to Brian.

Who has never heard of the Order, Mary
begins to open up about her family.

So she starts telling me about the
structure of the Order.

My dad had 18 wives.

At the time, he had over 200 children.

And, I mean, at that point, I felt like
I was living in an alternate reality.

Mary tells Brian that her father lives
in secrecy and fear of being arrested.

David Kingston spent four years in
prison during her childhood for incest

unlawful sexual assault of his 16 -year
-old niece.

After she testified, he took her as his
15th wife against her will.

Now, in her relationship with Brian
Nelson, for the first time in her life,

is seeing things from an outsider's
perspective.

And Brian Nelson is horrified.

I mean, she started talking to me
about... The really, really evil aspects

the order, like 15 -year -old girls
marrying their uncles, marrying their

cousins. She started telling about her
own parents, her parents are a half

-brother, half -sister. I said, these
are felonies.

This is incest, third -degree felony.

I remember the incest part really kind
of got to me, like there's something

really wrong here.

Outraged by what he is hearing, Brian
Nelson wants to know more.

and wants to help Mary see that there is
a different life outside the one she

has known.

But one day, Mary gets caught.

They completely, like, put me on
lockdown.

I couldn't go anywhere without my mom
next to me. I had to sleep in her bed

so that she knew I was there.

Mary says her father tells her there is
only one way to make things right.

Marriage within the order.

The person they wanted to marry is her
first cousin. She says she would be his

fifth wife.

And she has a deadline of two weeks to
be engaged.

They wanted me to be engaged to him when
I was 16 years old.

And I pushed it off for as long as I
possibly could until my dad said, you

to be engaged by the end of these two
weeks.

Mary begins secretly typing up a letter
to Brian and is able quickly to email it

from the office while no one is
watching.

So I'm receiving this email as an
attachment, and it's a letter from her.

And it's saying, I'm sorry.

I was found out that I was talking to an
outsider. They want me to marry

somebody within two weeks.

I want you to know I care about you, and
I hope you forgive me.

And I immediately responded, hoping that
she was going to still have access to

be able to read the email.

And I said, Mary, let's get you out.

Let's plan your escape.

Brian enlists the help of his parents,
and they devise a plan to get Mary out

the state until she's 18, if she decides
she wants to go.

That's when my mind started even
thinking about the possibility of

order.

I can leave?

Like, that's a possibility for me?

I remember getting up that morning
knowing that I was going to leave the

There wasn't another chance for me.
Like, if they caught me, that was it. I

would never have another chance to
leave.

So I went and woke up my younger sister,
and I said, go start making the eggs.

I'm going to be right back.

And I went downstairs, grabbed a bag of
my stuff, and left.

It was kind of the moment of truth.

I'm looking at the time, sure enough.

I see her running toward me.

And I go, Mary, Mary, run, run, come on.
Let's go. We've got to go.

And we're running, and we're going
straight to that outlet where my dad was

waiting in that car with the back seat
open.

And then immediately Mary just jumps in.
We get in. My dad takes off.

The next day, Brian's parents drive Mary
to Las Vegas.

where she would stay for five months
until she turns 18.

There, Mary Jacobs gets a job and her
first taste of life outside the order.

She also continues to date and fall in
love with Brian Nelson.

Things just seemed to fall into place,
and he made me feel really comfortable,

and it was really easy to talk to him.

He made me feel good, and I actually had
a choice in what I was doing.

They get married in Las Vegas on Mary's
18th birthday.

Only then does she return to the home
she ran away from to let her polygamist

parents know she would not be rejoining
the order.

They were shocked.

They shut off and they kind of were
like, okay, it's time for you to go.

not going to be a part of our life
anymore.

I told myself.

They need to see that I'm not trying to
hurt them. I didn't leave the order to

hurt them, and I don't have a problem
with what they're doing.

I just wanted something else for my own
life.

Next, time outside the order changes,
Mary Nelson, and she's finally ready to

sing. We told them who the owners of
Washkey Renewable Energy was and that

were a part of the order.

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podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be right back.

From the outside, Mary and Brian

Nelson appear to be an average young
couple settling into married life.

creating a home, starting a family.

But Mary also opens up to her husband
about what she has seen working in the

Order's accounting office for 10 years.

She is privy to all the transactions
that happen within the Order.

She sees the way that they would bring
in all this money and it would be

deposited into certain bank accounts
controlled by the leaders.

And the biggest business that the Order
operated was called Washakie Renewable

Energy.

Same with the business. All of the
businesses are run through the order.

Brian Nelson becomes obsessed with
exposing the order's alleged illegal

activities. And based on what he learns,
he suspects a massive tax fraud.

This, he believes, could be the ticket
to bringing the order down.

As Mary and Brian Nelson walk into a
meeting with the FBI, agents are unaware

that one of the biggest tax fraud cases
in Utah's history is about to unravel.

The young couple wants to share all they
know about the order, from allegations

of sex crimes and underage marriage to
various types of state and federal tax

fraud. You had somebody like me that
wasn't going to let go, was going to do

everything to make sure.

that the order was brought down and
exposed.

And then you had the perfect person to
be able to help do that. And that was

Mary that saw and was a part her whole
life of these financial transactions and

how they occurred.

We told them who the owners of Washkey
Renewable Energy was and that they were

part of the order.

I was able to see a lot of the different
transactions or even businesses that

Washkey

laundered money through.

Once we started talking and we started
explaining that all these businesses are

connected and all these people are
connected, they're all part of this

that's when they were like, oh, okay,
there's something wrong.

The FBI quickly learned that the IRS and
the EPA have already been secretly

investigating the company, their CEO,
Jacob Kingston, and his ties to shady

Angeles fuel dealer It starts to become
clear that

the issue here is a criminal issue. I
mean, you're looking at this small plant

in northern Utah that's claiming
millions, then tens of millions, then

of millions of dollars in credits from
the IRS for producing biodiesel. And it

doesn't add up. They had already audited
WashKey plenty of times before talking

to us.

They didn't understand the connection
between Washkey and all their shell

companies and all of the businesses that
were being used to launder all the

money.

So once we told them these are all run
by the same people, I think it really

helped solidify what they originally
thought was happening.

They met with them for hundreds of
hours, hundreds, to detail what the

operations were, who the players were,
what their role was.

how the Washakie energy scam was being
run without Mary's information that

she brought with her when she left, and
Brian's very detailed research into the

order, I don't think this ever would
have happened.

Meanwhile, even as investigators are
homing in, Jacob Kingston submits

$600 million in fraudulent claims.

This time, the claims are denied by the
IRS.

and it's time for the feds to make a
move.

At 8 a .m. on February 10, 2016, a team
of more than 100 federal agents

mobilizes a coordinated effort to raid
several locations related to the

investigation of Washakie Renewable
Energy.

including the home and offices of CEO
Jacob Kingston and the financial center

for the order.

But the feds won't know until much later
about a phone call that had come in to

Jacob Kingston a few days prior from a
man calling himself Mr. Green, who tells

Kingston a raid is in the works.

Michelle Michaels is 16 years old and
working at the order offices at the

They were tipped off which places could
possibly be hit.

They said, by this day, you need to have
these computers wiped.

Michelle says she and other minor
members of the order are enlisted to

destroy evidence.

Something was going to happen, and we
couldn't let it get into the wrong

That's what I understood.

And then, obviously, the raid happened.

Connect the dots.

Despite all of the plans laid by federal
agents to do this in secrecy and with

surprise, somehow a mole somewhere in
the federal government tipped off the

Kingstons that the feds were coming
after them.

A mole sympathetic to the order derails
the investigation.

So the feds didn't really turn up all
that much on those raids and they

actually... where you could see from the
dust that there had been folders there

until very recently. We seized all these
computers and found that the hard

drives had been wiped.

So whatever there was there, there are
things that the order was trying to hide

and wanted to make sure that the
government did not know about.

But the group was not able to wipe a non
-order -controlled server used by

Washakie Renewable Energy.

and thousands of emails and other
documents are able to be seized,

government to build a case.

Next, the tricky business of getting
fraudsters into custody.

Are they going to flee to Turkey?
Because if they flee to Turkey, we're

have a lot of trouble getting them
extradited and brought to justice in the

United States.

On August 23, 2018, Jacob Kingston walks
down a sky bridge at the Salt Lake City

Airport, heading for a flight to Turkey.

Before he can board the aircraft,
plainclothes federal agents step out and

arrest him.

His brother Isaiah is also taken into
custody the same day.

They are indicted on more than 40 counts
of fraud and conspiracy.

On the same day in Los Angeles, Levon
Tremensian, now legally going by the

Turkish name Lev Derman, is arrested
after walking into a federal building

meeting on an unrelated case.

And at first, they all say, we didn't do
it, we're innocent, not telling you

anything.

Jacob and Isaiah Kingston's mother,
Rachel, as well as Jacob's first wife,

Sally, are also charged with multiple
counts.

Washakie Renewable Energy was a family
enterprise.

And all of them were involved in the
fraud in various ways. They were

in creating fake paperwork, in making
sure that fuel was sent around where it

was supposed to be sent, but then
falsely reported on the paperwork.

Once the Kingston brothers realized they
could be facing life in prison, they

agreed to plead guilty, fully cooperate,
and testify against the lion.

For seven weeks, celebrity defense
attorney Mark Garagos, who has

the likes of Michael Jackson, Winona
Ryder, and Scott Peterson, defends Lev

Derman, a .k .a. Levon Tremensian,
against the government's avalanche of

evidence supporting their charges that
he is the mastermind of the billion

-dollar Washakie renewable energy fraud,
even though his name is nowhere on the

paperwork.

Derman's defense basically was, I'm a
legitimate businessman, and I was drawn

into this scheme by these crazy,
corrupt, weirdo, polygamist characters.

It is true that Jacob had already been
committing millions of dollars worth of

biodiesel fraud before he even met
Derman. But we're talking about single

millions. It's only when Derman comes
into the picture that all of a sudden

scam just mushrooms in size.

Jacob Kingston is the star witness
testifying against his former partner in

crime. We were not asking the jury to
believe Jacob Kingston.

We were just asking the jury to listen
to Jacob Kingston and believe the rest

the evidence that we had at trial. The
text messages, the bank records, the

other insiders who testified, the
photos, the recordings, the videos.

All of it put together corroborated
everything Jacob Kingston told the jury.

In March 2020, Lev Derman is found
guilty on 10 counts and faces life in

Jacob, Isaiah, Sally, and Rachel
Kingston, who all pleaded guilty, and

are awaiting sentencing, delayed due to
the COVID pandemic.

The order, officially known as the Davis
County Cooperative Society, states that

they were not aware of the fraud and
that Washakie Renewable Energy

actively hid the details of their
business activity.

Further, the group maintains that they
have been unfairly persecuted because

some members practice plural marriage.

They claim to be targeted by the media,
by Brian and Mary Nelson, and many other

former order members, mainly young
women, who have spoken out against the

group's alleged practice of promoting
underage marriage, and turning a blind

to abuse.

The group states that plural marriages
of individuals under 18 are not allowed,

and that abuse should not be condoned
under any circumstances.

Mary's mother has stated she would not
have forced her daughter to marry her

cousin.

Meanwhile, Mary and Brian Nelson have
settled into a new life.

I have an amazing life. I'm so thankful
for everything that I have. I have two

amazing kids, and I'm married to the
love of my life.

And there's just nothing like being able
to choose your own life and things that

you want, and that's something that I
never imagined would happen.

The Nelsons continue to work with other
former Order members like Michelle

Michaels, who got out three years after
Mary.

in order to expose what they claim are
other alleged issues and crimes within

the group.

I've always talked about and said how
Washakie is only one piece of this.

This is a war, and we won the battle of
Washakie.

What's next?

No other leaders or members of the order
have been charged with any crimes.

The Department of Justice continues to
investigate allegations.

against the order leadership.

And so the hope is also that this sends
a message to members of the order or

people who have left the order, that if
they have evidence about crimes

committed by the order, that the
numbered men, the leaders of the order,

untouchable, that they can be
investigated, prosecuted, and brought to