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Show A-12 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, February 1-4, 2020 The Park Record We specialize in resort mortgage lending, jumbos, condo hotels*, conventional, FHA and VA. Your LOCAL mortgage specialist, Loving, Living, Lending The Park City Lifestyle! Polygamy, fraud and Italian cars involved in Utah trial Kingston group court case to last at least a month Lisa Lundquist BRADY MCCOMBS Senior Loan Officer Associated Press NMLS#268664 lisal@vfund.com 435.659.1390 311 Main Street Park City, UT SALT LAKE CITY — Openings arguments are set this week in Utah for a California businessman who prosecutors accuse of being a key figure in a $511 million tax credit scheme carried out by two executives of a Salt Lake City biodiesel company linked to a polygamous group. The men from the polygamous group pleaded guilty last year to money fraud and other charges. Lev Aslan Dermen has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts, including money laundering and mail fraud. Opening arguments that were scheduled for Wednesday afternoon were pushed back until Thursday morning because of lingering issues in picking a jury from among a group of more than 30 potential jurors. A jury 16 people was finally selected Wednesday afternoon. Prosecutors say Dermen told the men how to launder the mon- ey, including buying luxury sports cars and million-dollar homes. They say he also bribed law enforcement to protect the men, though he’s not charged with bribery. One of Dermen’s attorneys is Mark Geragos, a Los Angeles lawyer who has represented actress Winona Ryder and musicians Michael Jackson and Chris Brown. Geragos is expected to push back against the prosecutors’ assertion that Dermen was the mastermind of the scheme. The business involved in the scheme, Washakie Renewable Energy, once described itself as the largest producer of clean burning and sustainable biodiesel in Utah. But prosecutors say the company was actually creating fake production records to get renewable-fuel tax credits, then laundering the proceeds from 2010 through 2016. Instead of making their own biodiesel as required in the program, they were buying and selling biofuels from other places and selling it. Dermen bought some of that second-hand biofuel and sold it at his gas stations, prosecutors allege. Company CEO Jacob Kings- ton pleaded guilty in July 2019 to more than three dozen counts, including mail fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. His brother and company CFO Isaiah Kingston pleaded guilty to more than a dozen similar counts. Prosecutors have said both men are members of the northern Utah-based Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group, which practices polygamy and owns hundreds of businesses. Group leaders have condemned fraudulent business practices. The money they earned in the scheme was used to buy houses and property in Turkey and Belize as well as Utah and Arizona, according to plea documents. Prosecutors planned to seize items including a $3.6 million home in Huntington Beach, California, as well as a Bugatti and Lamborghini as a result of the pleas. Prosecutors are also seizing other cars, cash and homes, including an upscale six-bedroom house in a Salt Lake City suburb that was valued at $4 million, according to county property records. Dermen’s trial is expected to last at least one month. Police say man kidnapped, raped teenager after school Student was found by friends close to school’s bus stop BRADY MCCOMBS Associated Press Veritas Funding NMLS#252108 is an Equal Housing Lender. This is not an offer of credit or commitment to lend. *Veritas Funding Brokers these loans. ABSOLUTE AUCTION SALT LAKE CITY – A teenage girl in Utah was kidnapped, drugged and raped when a man on parole for attempted murder forced her into his car while she was walking home, authorities said Tuesday. The suspect dropped the 15-year-old off at a bus stop near her school Monday after the attack, allowing her to run away and contact police, according to a probable cause statement. Surveillance video obtained by police showed the girl getting into the car near Hunter High School in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City. The girl told police the man had threatened to kill her with a knife. The suspect, Creed Cole Lujan, 43, has been booked on suspicion of eight counts, including kidnapping, rape and assault. He does not have an attorney listed and has not yet been formally charged. Authorities are requesting that bail be set at $250,000. Lujan went to prison in 2009 after pleading guilty to attempt- ed murder in an incident the year before in which was accused of pulling a woman into a hotel room and choking her until she was unconscious, according to online court records and the probable cause statement. He was paroled in 2015. The student in the attack Monday was found by her friends close to her school after being dropped at the bus stop, according to the Granite School District. Hunter High School officials said on social media that extra police officers would be on campus Tuesday and urged parents to review safety precautions with their children for walking to and from school. S E L L I N G TO H I G H E ST B I D D E R Bringing Community News to Park City Since 1880 LIVE ABSOLUTE AUCTION ON-SITE Call 435-649-9014 to Subscribe Today Auction on Saturday, February 15 at 11 AM 9021 Grove Crest Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89134 Visit www.DeCaroAuctions.com Preview Saturdays and Sundays 1-4 PM also by appointment. 1.800.332.3767 2% BROKER COOPERATION • REMOTE BIDDING AVAILABLE Property listed and offered for sale by Ivan Sher of The Ivan Sher Group, with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. Auction will be held in conjunction with Vegas Valley Auctions, 8560 Brent Ln, Las Vegas, NV 89143 license # P63-00051. |