marry who is entirely inaccurate". Financial fraud In 2016, the State of Utah with federal law enforcement raided various properties in connection with the Kingston family or Davis County Cooperative Society with the intention of finding welfare fraud. The State of Utah stated: "It was a specific investigation that we were approached by [federal law enforcement] to participate in." After two years of investigating, they did not find any welfare fraud. "State investigators found no wrongdoing among members of the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group." Members claim they have been broadly and unfairly targeted by authorities for the negative actions of a small few. Members allege to have been targeted for audit at a rate over 9x the published IRS average for the general population, with no pattern of fraud being found outside of a couple of bad-actors. In July 2019, Jacob Kingston, Isaiah Kingston, and two others pled guilty to participating in a fraud scheme masterminded by Lev Derman, a non-member and Armenian national. The scheme included filing for $512 million in federal renewable-fuel tax credits from 2010 to 2016 through a company named Washakie Renewable Energy LLC. One of the guilty pleas states they “cycled” fraud proceeds through a number of international partners and then back to Washakie's bank accounts, falsely claiming them as loans or profits. A small portion of the funds (less than 6%) were also used to purchase legitimate goods and services from businesses who provided them in "good faith". Legitimate businesses, including those in the Cooperative, argued that Jacob hid the scheme from business partners as well as Co-op leadership. The remainder of the transactions (over 94%) were to entities associated with Lev Derman, who prosecutors allege was the mastermind of the scheme. Derman was found guilty of masterminding the scheme in March 2020. As part of the plea deal and restitution, the company forfeits rights to a number of assets including their bio-fuel plant in Plymouth, Utah. WRE has since become defunct. Davis County Cooperative leadership and members swiftly condemned the fraudulent behavior stating that "[Jacob] broke from tradition in many ways" and stressing "to members and non-members alike that this behavior is not in line with our beliefs or principles." And, "We cannot and will not condone or support anyone found to be engaged in any fraudulent behaviors." In a recent lawsuit, ex-members allege that the WRE