Jessica Kingston said a girls devotion and attitude are often measured by her view of polygamy. . Dating or romance among young people before marriage is forbidden in the Kingston Group, but the sect does hold dances. John Daniel Kingston regularly subjected two of his teenage daughters to abuse and neglect, and the girls mother Heidi Foster, one of Kingstons estimated 14 wives failed to protect them, a juvenile judge ruled Thursday. She said her father didnt think the suitor was a good student. . Due to the Kingstons convoluted genealogy, Lu Ann was both his first cousin and his aunt. Estimated read time: 3-4 He was taking off his belt. During his parole hearing in August, he admitted for the first time that he had had sex with the girl. But lots of people in the sect are already descended from that family, Hansen said; thats why there are so many cousin marriages in the Kingston Group. Some shed tears as the girl testified. The parents of the 16-year-olds also completed a form granting their permission. He served one day in jail. The move would have allowed the company to collect tax credits on biodiesel it did not actually produce. She since has been placed in foster care. And when her children were abused, Foster stood by. LGBT people fare little better in the Kingston clan. For now, the five defendants are the three men charged in August: brothers Jacob and Isaiah Kingston, the chief executive officer and chief financial officer, respectively, of Washakie Renewable Energy; one of the business associates, Lev Dermen; and the two women whose indictments were unsealed Tuesday, Rachel Kingston, 63, and Sally Louise Kingston, the 41-year-old wife of Jacob Kingston. She does not favor a change in the marriage age. That usually means marrying a Kingston descendant. If God gives him direction on whom to marry, he goes to his dad. Centered on the trial of John Daniel Kingston, who was tried for assault on his 16-year-old daughter. Like polygamy, incest is a third-degree felony in Utah, and as with polygamy, convictions are rare. At 15, Snow ran away from home, wound up in a foster home and later was returned to her mother. Hansen said some men try to use their children to improve their status in the sect. Girls are told they will need to pray to God so he might show them who their No. But I do have children with other women., Asked if two women named were in fact his first cousins, Young paused, finally replying, I guess Im curious as to what youre trying to get at here.. Polygamy is outlawed in Utah, both by the states constitution, and in statute, where it is a third-degree felony, with a possible punishment of five years in prison. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing it? On this much, though, mother and daughter agree: Snows father was the primary driver. So it means being a first [wife]. The Order denies that it encourages racism and homophobia within its ranks. Hansen, 50, in a recent interview, said she told her daughter that wanting to leave home was the wrong reason to get married. Hansen, 50, in a recent interview, said she told her daughter that wanting to. Their cousin Amanda Kingston is the daughter of Verl Kingston and granddaughter of Ortell Kingston. The father preferred another who had inquired about marrying Jessica. To go to Colorado, DeRieux said, she and her fianc drove to Price, where they jumped into a 15-passenger van carrying their parents, the other two sets of brides and grooms and their parents. At age 15, Snow wanted out of the Kingston Group. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jessica Kingston was wed at age 16 in what she says was a marriage she felt pressured into by her parents and others in a polygamous sect. For now, Utah law says a 15-year-old may marry with the consent of a parent or guardian and the permission of a juvenile court judge. But The Orders critics say that cult members see nothing wrong with bilking the government, a time-honored tradition among FLDS sects, gleefully referred to as bleeding the beast.. Mainly it's been hard emotionally. Kingston, 44, pleaded no contest in April to child abuse, a third-degree felony, for belt-whipping his then 16-year-old daughter after she fled from an arranged polygamous marriage to his brother last year. While much of the focus of any polygamous group is on plural marriages that happen outside the law, records and interviews with current and former first wives in the Kington Group lend insight into how legal marriages are facilitated. Some former teenage Kingston Group brides acknowledge they werent forced to marry; they made a choice. Escaping Polygamy focuses on four sisters, Jessica & Andrea Kingston (daughters of John Daniel Kingston and his 6th wife Heidi Mattingly) and Shanell & Kollene Kingston (daughters of John Daniel Kingston and his former 7th wife Shirley Hansen). ". Donate to the newsroom now. When someone is interested in marriage, the process is something more like a job interview than a courtship. One is a first cousin. Not every Kingston Group follower marries as a juvenile. Local Policing and Immigration Enforcement, Request for Legal Assistance Economic Justice. All rights reserved. Both he and Dermen have pushed for prosecutors to accelerate the disclosure of evidence so the cases can move to trial. Girls who reach their mid- and late teens can start to feel the pressure to wed. Jessica Kingston said when word gets out that a boy or young man has asked a girls father for permission to marry her, friends and family are walking up to that girl asking, Did you pray about him?. But Stephanie Mattingly doesn't ever want to go back to her old life in the Kingston polygamous clan. Ortell is credited with expanding The Orders business empire and making the family immensely wealthy. According to Montana court documents, the couple had an argument at their apartment and DeRieuxs then-husband threw her down a flight of stairs. Also frequently featued is Amanda Kingston, daughter of Verl Kingston, half-brother to Daniel Kingston. She is the fifth of her mothers 12 children. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges Washakie made almost no biofuel and instead bought and sold products and fabricated papers to collect a tax rebate from the federal government. The woman who married in 2014 at age 16 and asked not to be identified is still with her husband. In Utah, Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, plans a bill that would raise the minimum marriage age to 18. Jessica as well as Snow, DeRieux and Hansen all favor raising the legal marriage age in Utah and other states to 18. Theyre basically the Utah Mafioso of the white power world, Browning told Intelligence Report. But Jessicas No. The girl, who as an adult would unsuccessfully sue the clan, then walked miles to the nearest gas station, where she called the police. Psychological evaluations of Kingston and Foster; Kingston to fill out a child support worksheet to determine what financial aid Foster and her children should receive; Mental and developmental assessments of the couples eight other children. Members of The Order are taught they need to be in a plural marriage to reach the highest heaven. Or leave. Valdez ordered the girls to remain out of their home: The younger girl will remain with her aunt and uncle, and the older teen will be placed in a high-level foster home, with extended visits at home. The Tribune, with assistance from former sect members who reviewed the records, also found 20 cases in which both the bride and groom were at least 18. And that's the hardest thing to accept.". The trial of the man, David Ortell Kingston . Obviously, we would love to.. The marriages, former followers say, can be used as a tool to keep girls in the Kingston Group, known among younger members as The Order. For their part, the brides sometimes see legal marriages as a way to avoid becoming polygamists later (and consequently being matched with a husband perhaps twice their age) or a means to escape their parents crowded households. But given that the Kingstons command an estimated 6,000 adherents, boast a business empire reportedly worth as much as $1 billion and have outlasted myriad bouts with law enforcement and the press, these dreams of world domination may be less delusional than they first seem. Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune. DeRieux was photographed in Layton, Wednesday, July 11, 2018. If you have as much as one drop of that blood in your veins, says Carl, youre cursed from holding the priesthood.. Stephanie, who just turned 17, told us and has testified in court that as a young girl she was emotionally, physically and sexually abused by her father, John Daniel Kingston. Jessica Kingston wore a white dress. DeRieux said she and her husband were not allowed to live together or consummate their marriage until they had a religious ceremony the following month. Girls who agree to become plural wives tend to be more devout and usually live in homes without their husband, thus receiving less scrutiny. archived form does not constitute a republication of the story. I guess I just had too much soy, Snow smiled. The four sisters from Escaping Polygamy, Jessica, Andrea, Shanell, and Kollene Kingston are the daughters of John Daniel Kingston and granddaughters of John Ortell Kingston. What were taught is to love our neighbor, that all people, all races no matter who they are deserve to be loved, he explained. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. Todd Utzinger, one of Kingstons former attorneys, said the parole boards decision to not supervise Kingston recognizes that he has taken full responsibility and is prepared to go on and live a crime-free life.. Former sect members testified in favor of the measure, but its unclear whether the pressures faced by teens in the Kingston Group constitute forced marriage. Stephanie says she was only 12 when her father began preparing her for marriage. She says that's partly because her mother doesn't plan to leave the Kingston clan. The renunciation of polygamy is now church doctrine, and the Mormon church has a policy of excommunicating polygamists. WREs influence earned special scrutiny in February 2016 after the IRS, the EPA and other government agencies raided owner Jacob Kingstons house as well as The Orders bank and other locations, carting away bankers box after bankers box of records. There is also some overlap with Sovereign citizens, he contends. We havent gotten any big U.S. contracts, Young explained. In 2003, another clan member, Jeremy Kingston pleaded guilty to incest for taking 15-year-old Lu Ann Kingston as his fourth wife. And then, when the men get mad at each other, they wont let the [other] mans sons come forward to marry one of their daughters. Irvin, Kingstons attorney, said his client would focus now on healing and reuniting his family. The next night she returned to her mother's Murray home and the mother called her husband. Two are nieces. She pointed to Kingston. In a search of public records created since the start of 1997, The Salt Lake Tribune found 65 marriages among members of the Kingston Group in which the bride was 15, 16 or 17. Addressing her father, she said: Im sorry you had to go through this, too, Dad . She says life in the clan wasn't easy. Irvin said the girls testimony was all over the place and that she admitted lying to protect people she liked while also lying to hurt those she didnt. Rather than parole him, the state Board of Pardons and Parole opted to terminate his sentence. Scott remembered that Ortell had an answer for that question. As far as court testimony about polygamy, incest, bigamy and adultery, Valdez said those were allegations to be address by another court at another time. Prosecutors have alleged the fraud amounted to almost $511 million, with the money going to the purchase of property in Turkey, among other things. Black people supposedly suffered from multiple scriptural curses, from the mark of Cain and Noahs curse on Ham in the Old Testament to the racist tenets of early Mormonism that have since been renounced or abandoned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS or Mormon church. Her father, John Daniel Kingston, has 14 wives. (Photo courtesy of Kollene Snow) Kollene Snow, 16, poses in her dress before her 2009 marriage in West Valley City. Until losing an appeal, David Kingston denied having sex with his niece. Jessica saw the list. There also is a link to a Change.org petition to have. Jessica is hardly the only girl to make such a choice. She told police she was David Kingston's 15th wife. Julie left the cult at age 19. Young told Intelligence Report that his company has sold weapons, with the approval of the U.S. State Department, to governments in Europe and the Middle East, Saudi Arabia being one. Elden also instituted the church law of one above the other, requiring members blind obedience to the churchs hierarchy of numbered men, with Elden being Brother Number One. They teach the girls its their choice, Hansen said, but [say], Heres the selection.. It still hasnt been explained how anyone at Washakie would have known about the raid. Their grooms averaged 20 years and 18 days. Young is the owner of Desert Tech, a Utah gun manufacturer, which produces sniper rifles and so-called bullpup rifles, The latter, unlike conventional magazine-fed rifles, have shorter barrels, with the guns action located behind the trigger. John Daniel Kingston, who according to court testimony once had 14 wives, was on hand in 2011, when his sons held an open house at the Washakie production plant in Plymouth near Interstate 15 and the Idaho line. Jeremy was nearly 10 years her senior at the time. He said there were three," the girl testified. There are also accounts of dead babies being buried at the Holy Spot, a tree-shrouded patch of land across the street from a grade school in Bountiful, just north of Salt Lake City. Ron says the cults justification for its racism goes back to early Mormon teachings about a war in heaven between the forces of Satan and those of Jesus. David Kingston's 16-year-old wife was the daughter of another brother, John Daniel Kingston, who was sentenced to 28 weeks in jail for severely beating his daughter after she attempted. And going back to that, she says, would hurt her future. Stephanie wants to break from her past, but is also paving her future. From Hansens perspective, the entire Kingston Group marriage process is like being told you can have anything to eat as long as it comes from a certain table. Current members dispute those characterizations. Anyone can use it regardless of ability, approach, or level of acceptance by recognized authorities in the field. Her top choice the one whom she felt God told her to marry was a man five years older than she and to whom she was related on both sides of her family tree. The couples wedding certificate says Stoddard officiated the ceremony April 26, 2008, in West Valley City. Jessica Kingston said she has heard males talking to one another about a girl and say, If youre going to marry that girl, shes going to have to be a first wife because she wont live polygamy.. Her husband knew she didnt want him to have a plural spouse, she said, but his father told him he needed to have one. Kingston was described by officials as a model prisoner, who tutored inmates trying to complete high school and worked as a paid teaching assistant in the prisons college program. Paul Kingston told her congratulations. Stephanie Mattingly: "I don't want to go back because I don't want to be abused anymore.". Additionally, ex-Order members tell of a reputed church prophecy of an End of the World War, an apocalyptic vision that foresees a bloody race war with the Kingstons as the ultimate victors, chosen by their Heavenly Father to rule the world for a millennium. Valdez allowed both girls to address their parents after his ruling. He would talk to them about marriage and thinking of whom to marry, Hansen said. Blacks were the less valiant people in heaven who sat on the sidelines while others took sides, according to The Order. When she fled the marriage, her father, John Daniel Kingston, drove her . The two were playmates when they were boys. Stephanie is in state custody and officials are aware she's talking us. The girl suffered a swollen nose, cut lip and deep bruises on her arms, buttocks and legs, according to testimony. DCFS declined to open a case, but Guardian ad Litem Kristin Brewer intervened. Ethnic jokes and stereotypes were commonly repeated. More troubling, during a contentious 2004 custody case that ensued when Jessica and her sister Andrea fled Daniel Kingstons household, a judge in the case reportedly was the subject of a death threat, allegedly from Kingston clan members. He was jailed for beating his daughter into unconsciousness in 1998 after the girl, then 16, ran away from an arranged marriage to her uncle. Her parents placed her in what she called a repentance home, where she wasnt allowed to communicate with anyone without supervision. He walked out the front door at the prison about 10 minutes ago, said Jack Ford, spokesman for the Corrections Department. They appeared in Salt Lake Citys federal court with an attorney Tuesday morning for an arraignment. No recordings or photos were allowed during the ceremony. Three of Kingston's 14 wives also are in the photo. Obsessed with the purity of their bloodline and empowered by a sense of entitlement on par with the divine right of kings, the Kingstons have made incest the cornerstone of a self-serving theology that loathes non whites, fosters homophobia and abhors government authority. Had Snow been a better behaved, more devout member of the Kingston Group, Hansen said, there may not have been a push to have her legally marry at 16. One of the seven brothers was John Daniel Kingston, the father of the main stars of "Escaping Polygamy." TV Premiere and premise of "Escaping Polygamy" He was jailed for beating his daughter into. If the father believes his son received true direction from God, the son is sent to Paul Kingston or one of the people he designates to consider marriages. Depending on ones view, members of the Kingston Group either take care to follow marriage laws, or work to circumvent them. Keri Russell: I won't Cruise into scientology, Court documents claim man killed step-daughters in Satanic ritual, Joyce Meyer ministry is selling posh homes, Research Cults, Abusive Churches, Spiritual Abuse, Undue Influence, and More, Pentagon paid $1.7 million to firms of polygamy bosses, AG: Polygamy conviction is the beginning of more prosecutions. Their grooms were 22. She doesn't want that again for her or her eight siblings who have been caught in the middle of a year-long custody battle. She and her husband had four children with whom they share custody. Reportedly, Paul and his brother each have dozens of wives and hundreds of children. In his ruling, Valdez ordered that the last names of all 10 children be legally changed to Kingston, dropping Foster, a fake last name sometimes used by their father. David Kingstons 16-year-old wife was the daughter of another brother, John Daniel Kingston, who was sentenced to 28 weeks in jail for severely beating his daughter after she attempted to flee the marriage. 2K views, 27 likes, 7 loves, 18 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Dbstvstlucia: DBS MORNING SHOW & OBITUARIES 25TH APRIL 2023 APRIL 2023 No. Information in the story may be outdated By 18, she was pregnant with her first child and ended up having four children in four years. One woman who was married in 2014 at age 16 said she did so for the same reason most people do: She fell in love. The Polygamy Dilemma Is Plural Marriage a Dead Issue in Mormonism? It was believed that between these seven brothers, they had 90 wives who were their half-sisters or half-nieces; there were 850 children in all. The term 'cult expert' is not protected. A 1999 Salt Lake Tribune article mapped the Kingstons incestuous family tree, quoting one of Ortells 65 kids, ex-Order member Connie Rugg as saying, My father experimented [with] inbreeding with his cattle and then he turned to his children.. Utah District Court Judge Ben Hadfield sentences John Daniel Kingston, who pleaded no contest to having whipped 16-year-old daughter for fleeing arranged polygamous marriage with her uncle, David . As a result, the prison has no responsibility to follow up on Kingston. Browning sees similarities between The Order and the religion-minded racists of the World Church of the Creator and the Christian Identity movement. Kingston has about 120 children from polygamous relationships with more than a dozen women. According to historian Brian Hales Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations After the Manifesto, Brother Elden, as he was also known, had five wives and 17 children. For fun he and other Order men would go to a park frequented by gay males, looking for victims. The Intelligence Report is the SPLC's award-winning magazine. Calls to John Daniel Kingston's attorney, were not returned. She favors raising the legal marriage age to 18. All Rights Reserved, Polygamist faces trial in daughters beating. The Tuckers think this is all hogwash now, though they were programmed to believe it at the time. I knew I wasn't supposed to marry him, she said, but I almost did to get everyone to shut up and leave me alone about marriage.. Over the years, state law enforcement and the courts have sporadically addressed the incest in the Kingston ranks. For a stretch in 2014 and 2015, Washakie was one of Utahs highest-profile businesses. Three weeks after Snow married a 21-year-old man in Davis County, Hansens 17-year-old daughter legally married a 24-year-old man in Salt Lake County. The term cult has a precise definition or rather, Religion News Blog is a service provided by. Mark Hansen, Fosters attorney, said Kingstons actions fall within a Utah law allowing corporal punishment. Llewellyn, John R. Polygamy Under Attack: From Tom Green to Brian David Mitchell (2004) Dan Simon & Amanda Townsend (September 7, 2007). Her younger sister Emily thought it was a joke, too, until one day another Order kid told her, We cant play with you because the Tuckers are n------.. . That daughter was born with a form of heart disease and had long acted responsibly in caring for it, Hansen said. He even had charts showing who were the higher families in the sect so his daughters knew where to look for a mate. (Listed if other than Religion News Blog, or if not shown above). Tucker is another of Ortells many sons, though not from the favored wife, LaDonna. Another of Ortells teachings: Adolf Hitler had the right idea about creating a master race, but didnt have the Lords help, so he failed. minutes. But The Order saves most of its bile for blacks and other non whites. In secret videotapes of Order church meetings aired on Escaping Polygamy, Pauls nephew Nick Young, speaking from a church lectern, identifies himself as a numbered man, number 72, to be precise. . Speaking of which: One way in which you can support us at no additional cost to you is by shopping at Amazon.com. The bride was 16. John Daniel Kingston regularly subjected two of his teenage daughters to abuse and neglect, and the girls' mother Heidi Foster, one of Kingston's estimated 14 wives failed to protect them, a juvenile judge ruled Thursday. A loyal Order member for years, he lost his faith and ended up leaving the Order over a curse of sorts, leveled at his family by LaDonna. Elden had predicted that he would be resurrected from the dead, so clan members kept his body on ice for three days, to no avail. To get out of this s----y situation, I have to get into another s----y situation, said Kollene Snow, who married at 16 and is DeRieuxs full sister. Motions, apparently filed by the Kingston Group and member businesses, were sealed, and the entire court docket for the prosecutions was sealed from public view Thursday a rare event in Utahs federal court. She talked about how you cant associate with black people or anybody of a different race., Based on available evidence, including the accounts of numerous former Order members, the SPLC has designated The Order as a hate group under the category of `general hate.'. Isaiah Kingston is charged with 19 such counts. I didnt even know the n-word was bad until I was like 15 or 16, she told Intelligence Report. The Order can rightly claim discrimination by mainstream Mormonism, but this is due to its embrace of polygamy, which the LDS church officially abandoned in 1890 in order for Utah to become a state. She and her husband had moved to Billings, Mont., to work for a coal mine. Jacob Kingston has filed a motion for pretrial release and offered to post $10 million in bail. A nationwide debate is underway about teens, especially girls, marrying. Jessica Kingston said within a year of getting married, her husband started looking for a plural wife. John Daniel Kingston served 28 weeks after pleading no contest to child abuse following a 1998 episode in which he belt-whipped a girl. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rachel Ann Kingston, mother of Isaiah Kingston, leaves the federal courthouse after a hearing for defendants Jacob and Isaiah Kingston on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018. But Jessica knew the longer she waited to wed, the more likely she would have to become a polygamist and the more likely her husband would be far older than she was. She's since left the marriage and wants the legal marriage age raised to 18. Polygamist John Daniel Kingston, left, in attendance at a memorial for the victims of a flash flood. She ran away several times, but was always sent back to her family. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Snow said the classes also taught the girls to be submissive to their husbands and to keep a good house for them. Sally Kingston is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of money laundering. While all that is happening, the potential bride is supposed to have been praying about whom to marry. One ex-Order member, who asked to be referred to as Scott, instead of his real name for fear of retribution by clan members, said hatred of gays was big in the Kingston clan, with the word f----- in frequent use. Brother Elden died of penile cancer in 1948, despite the best efforts of some family members to burn away the cancer using acid. A member of a polygamist clan today was convicted of incest with his 16-year-old niece, who testified that she had been forced to become his 15th wife. Johnson did not provide the raw data to support those statistics. Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune All the families belong to the Davis County Cooperative Society. It passed a bill adding forced marriage into the states definition of sexual abuse. For now, all three men remain in jail. 1 choice [of whom to marry] in The Order, Jessica Kingston said. Kingston's attorney, Daniel Irvin, argued that his client had done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for his. New indictments were not a surprise. The teen was anxious to tell her story, she says, to educate people about polygamy and to help other kids who are looking for a way out. As far as how you end up in heaven, thats up to God.. Washakie Renewable Energy promoted itself as a manufacturer and seller of biofuels. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Stephanie Mattingly: "I feel we are in the same situation now, and once the kids are home and the case is closed, we will hear their cries for help once again.". Jessica suspects her dad was pushing her toward another man.
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