LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A former Los Angeles Armenian mafia leader was sentenced on Friday to 40 years in prison for his role in a multi-billion dollar scheme to rip off American taxpayers.
Lev Aslan Dermen, also known as Levon “The Lion” Termendzhyan, was convicted of conspiring with members of a polygamous Utah sect known as “The Order” for one of the most daring tax frauds in history.
He was found guilty after a seven-week trial of conspiracy to commit letter fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering.
Dermen was a Bel Air billionaire and gas station tycoon when he teamed up with members of the polygamous Kingston clan.
According to the Ministry of JusticeCourt documents and testimony from Dermen’s 2020 trial show that from 2010 to 2018, Dermen conspired with various members of the Kingston family to fraudulently claim more than $1 billion in recoverable renewable fuel tax credits.
The IRS eventually disbursed more than $511 million in loans to Washakie Renewable Energy, a Utah biodiesel company owned by Jacob and Isaiah Kingston.
The Kingstons split the fraud proceeds among themselves and Dermen, the DOJ said.
Jacob Kingston, 46, closed a plea deal and testified against Dermen, telling jurors they had more money than they could launder, so they began selling luxury items like Lamborghinis and Bugattis along with private jets, yachts and mansions in the city Buy Turkey, Utah and Huntington Beach.
Prosecutors said Dermen employed a team of corrupt law enforcement officials, including former DHS agent Felix Cisneros, former Glendale detective John Balian and former FBI agent Babak Broumand.
In addition to the prison sentence, Dermen was ordered to pay the IRS $442,615,520 in compensation and had a monetary judgment in excess of $181 million.
Jacob Kingston, who was a co-owner and CEO of Washakie, was ordered to pay the IRS $511 million. The court also imposed a $338 million monetary judgment on him. He was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on Friday.
“The substantial penalties imposed by the court reflect the staggering magnitude of the defendants’ nearly decade-long tax fraud program — one of the largest of all time,” said Stuart M. Goldberg, deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s tax division. “Dermen and members of the Kingston family cost law-abiding taxpayers more than $500 million and attempted to steal twice that. They also tried to cover their tracks by running billions of dollars in transactions through the banking system and fuel purchases and oil used tankers to trick their plant into actually making and selling biodiesel fuel eligible for IRS credits. Tax prosecutors and IRS-CI special agents have not only unraveled this scheme – they have uncovered, traced and recovered millions of dollars of revenue that was being kept secret in Turkey, the United States and elsewhere.”
https://worldtimetodays.com/former-los-angeles-armenian-mafia-leader-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison-over-multi-billion-dollar-biofuel-tax-scheme/