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WASHINGTON — Five individuals were sentenced this week to prison for their roles in a $1 billion biofuel tax conspiracy: Lev Aslan Dermen, aka Levon Termendzhyan, 56, was sentenced to 40 years; Jacob Kingston, 46, was sentenced to 18 years; Isaiah Kingston, 42, was sentenced to 12 years; Rachel Kingston, 67, was sentenced to seven years; and Sally Kingston, 45, was sentenced to six years.
According to court documents and testimony from Dermen’s 2020 trial, from 2010 to 2018, Dermen conspired with Jacob and Isaiah Kingston, their mother, Rachel Kingston, Jacob Kingston’s wife, Sally Kingston, and others, to fraudulently claim more than $1 billion in refundable renewable fuel tax credits. The IRS ultimately paid out more than $511 million in credits to Washakie Renewable Energy (“Washakie”), a Utah biodiesel company owned by Jacob and Isaiah Kingston. The Kingstons distributed the fraud proceeds among themselves and Dermen.
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program is a national policy that requires a certain volume of renewable fuel to replace or reduce the quantity of petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil or jet fuel. The RFS program requires producers or importers of renewable fuel to generate fuel credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), in proportion to the amount and type of renewable fuel they produced or imported. Congress adopted the RFS program to reduce the nation's dependence on...
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