He told her he believed one did not need to practice polygamy to reach heaven. Mafi recalls Paul Kingston telling the children who attended that meeting that The Order was going to be trying out something new, the lawsuit says. Colbert Reimagines Disney Park as 'De-Wokeified' DeSantis World, Sex, Drugs, and the Biggest Cybercrime of All Time, I could boil down what theyre about in three words, says a member who broke with the Order. She didnt want to be in that house anymore; it reminded her of my brother. To test her devotion, Stephens father began calling her in the middle of the night and telling her to move the family to a new location. They had 4 children: John Hozlette Kingston and 3 other children. After the wedding, Richaun chose the name Knight randomly a practice designed to prevent prosecutors from proving that men in the Order have multiple wives. A nationwide debate is underway about teens, especially girls, marrying. She favors raising the legal marriage age to 18. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Shortly after that meeting, the complaint continues, Mrs. All of their children who survived the Great Famine emigrated. Genealogy profile for Paul Kingston Paul Kingston (1824 - 1894) - Genealogy Genealogy for Paul Kingston (1824 - 1894) family tree on Geni, with over 240 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. Their divorce was finalized in July 2012 a little more than three years after they married. In its place, someone had left a note. When he had finished, he walked toward Stephen, who was sitting on the tractor. Paul Valls's wife is Sharon Vallas. Michaels and Mary Nelson describe similar experiences with their financial aid applications and awards. The bride was 16. It wasnt like we thought about it a lot. Snow said her marriage fell apart over her not liking the Kingston Group and her husband wanting to have another wife. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake Community College Redwood Road campus is pictured Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. A body of research suggests the teenage brain is not developed enough to make the kind of long-term decision needed for marriage. 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. Its his father, the prophet, calling to coax his wayward son back into the fold. Theyd keep it in basements, in filing cabinets, in a big safe in one of Pauls offices, says Levi Kingston, a former clan member. When Jessica Kingston was 15, her father told her she had four choices apparently the number of suitors who had spoken to him about marrying her. As he grew older, Stephen turned out to be as rebellious as his own father had been. Some people say they funneled the money through Mexico. Some children are born blind, others with missing fingernails or undersize heads. Hansen, 50, in a recent interview, said she told her daughter that wanting to leave home was the wrong reason to get married. According to Montana court documents, the couple had an argument at their apartment and DeRieuxs then-husband threw her down a flight of stairs. There shouldnt really be a reason for an age limit, she said. Johnson said the Davis County Cooperative Society takes no position on the issue. Do you think if I took $5 million in gold, Id be working out here?. But 16- and 17-year-olds in Utah need only the consent of a parent to wed. Idaho, Colorado and Nevada, where the The Tribune also found Kingston Group marriages, have similar age and parental-consent requirements. 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. Did the Utah Legislature do enough to save the Great Salt Lake? We've received your submission. In 2006, it was estimated that Paul Kingston had up to 27 wives (including three half-sisters of his), [5] some . (Jessicas dad and the young man had taken courses together at the University of Utah.) By the time the teenagers sped away, they had made off with more than $80,000 in silver. This is nothing more than a continued attempt in a long history to keep DCCS members from accessing education and services every other U.S. citizen is legally entitled to. But the more the deputy pressed, the more their stories didnt add up. Every now and then, as hes driving around the ranch, his phone will ring. Their grooms were 22. It begins with the potential groom. Hansen said some men try to use their children to improve their status in the sect. However, Grant claims she endured years of sexual abuse by a half-brother as a child. My 4-year-old comes to me and says she has to find out her No. We were taught to be polite, but to never make friends with outsiders. The clan avoids hospitals, believing government-backed doctors might inject them with a mysterious disease or demand birth records exposing the Orders lifestyle. 180+ Jonathan Jacob Meijer View Site Google Maps The DCCS is a financial cooperative established by his uncle Elden Kingston in 1935. He had arranged for a banner to be placed over a bridge there. Ive lived a good life. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, he thinks of his brother who died not far from here, and the rest of his siblings who remain in the Order. On February 26th, 2009, the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Office got a call of suspicious activity in the foothills above the city. Within a year, Paul Kingston would take a fourth wife. By 18, she was pregnant with her first child and ended up having four children in four years. DeRieux remarried at age 21 to a man who isnt from the Kingston Group. She grew up in Woods Cross and hated The Order all her life, she said in a recent interview. Stephens father seemed to marry a new girl every year, each one younger and prettier than the last. This is your fault, he thundered, glaring at them. Stephen didnt know what the law said he only knew that the people he loved were being abused and exploited by his own father. Paul Kingston succeeded his father John Ortell Kingston as the leader of the Kingston Clan on his father's death in 1987. The group also teaches its members that only those with so-called pure blood will survive the apocalypse, according to the lawsuit. There are thousands of members in the group. The father preferred another who had inquired about marrying Jessica. Not every Kingston Group follower marries as a juvenile. (Paul Kingston and other leaders of the family ignored repeated requests for comment for this story. J.O. [5][6][7][8] Members generally seek the blessing of parents and religious leaders before choosing to marry. To hide the scope of his organization, J.O. Jessica said, strictly speaking, she and the other teen brides she knows chose to get married, but added: Its not much of a choice when theyre groomed to do that.. When a girl doesnt want to be a polygamist, that information is shared among boys and men in the sect. Short and chubby, the Brown boys looked up to the Knight brothers. Girls, many of them teen brides, answer phones at the Orders law office, bag groceries at its supermarket or tend to the clans many children. Men rise in prominence by being obedient and pure of blood and by having large families that can produce a lot of money and workers for the group, the suit continues. The Kingston Group is not affiliated withthe Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) based on the Utah-Arizona line that is run by imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides. They did it, says Christian Kingston. The accusers also claim that the group arranged child marriages so that girls would become pregnant and beholden to their husbands and the religious sect. Duringa 2020 trialfor a California businessman accused of carrying out a nearly $500 million biodiesel fraud scheme with a member of the Kingston Group, attorneys for the businessman called the Kingstons an incestuous polygamous group that is always scheming to defraud the US government in what the group calls bleeding the beast., A spokesman for the group, Kent Johnson, called those allegations categorically false.. (Photo courtesy of Kollene Snow) Kollene Snow, 16, poses in her dress before her 2009 marriage in West Valley City. As he talked to the woman who lived there, Luke Brown came out of the house, and his brother Scott soon joined him. The complaint against the Kingston Group also known as the Order was filed in Salt Lake City last week by 10 people, including Amanda Rae Grant, who starred in the A&E docu-series Escaping Polygamy.. For more than a decade, the group has publicly spoken out against child-bride marriages and the DCCS has a policy encouraging its members to marry within the legal age of consent. All the families belong to the Davis County Cooperative Society. They did so July 3, 2008, in Grand Junction, Colo, where records show two other couples from the Kingston Group married that day. Paul Kingston and his wife, Mary Kelly, were natives of Moinies (Meenies) townland, Drimoleague, Co. Cork, Ireland. Birthdate: 1791. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Complete statement from Davis County Cooperative Society: For decades, the DCCS has encouraged its members to be well-educated, well-informed, independent thinkers. He thinks about his mom, and wonders if she misses him. The suitor had asked her to dance a few times at The Orders youth social events. Fortunately, our population has already attained a higher graduation rate for high school and associates degrees for men and women in the DCCS. Many children begin working before 10 . He no longer believed in the Order, but he knew that leaving would mean being shunned by his own family, and because he had been forbidden from making friends outside the clan, there would be few people in the world he could turn to. Mysterious cars followed his girlfriend, and he once came home to find that someone had rifled through his drawers. His most bizarre beliefs, though, concerned the occult. Jessica Kingston said a girls devotion and attitude are often measured by her view of polygamy. Her father, John Daniel Kingston, has 14 wives. The Order stays as far away as possible from police, and this was like inviting them in your front door., With its vast wealth suddenly exposed to public view, the clan moved quickly to hush up the scandal. He told the children they would all be applying for financial aid, enrolling at SLCC and majoring in business administration, the lawsuit cites Mafi as saying. Paul Kingston, they said, has 17 wives and nearly 50 children. He picked fights at school, shot a teacher in the face with a water gun and refused to do homework or answer questions. Theyll do what they need to do to defend whats theirs.. A Tale of Two Chads: More Drama From Nineties Band Live. On this much, though, mother and daughter agree: Snows father was the primary driver. I dont really have too many friends, but the ones I do, I wouldnt trade for anything., Among Stephens friends were two of his cousins, Luke and Scott Brown. took great pains to never show his wealth and taught his followers to do the same. 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?. It was time. As time passed, his dogma became even stranger. Photo Credit: Sullivan County Sheriff's Office. He didnt have anyone to help him process what had just happened., Taking advantage of his status as a son of the prophet, Stephen began bending the rules even further. . A statement from the only higher education institution mentioned in the lawsuit, Salt Lake Community College, said it has not received any subpoenas or inquiries. The two most recent of those marriages, according to wedding certificates, occurred in April. If the Order doesnt have it, the clan teaches, we dont need it., Editors picks (Photo courtesy Shanell DeRieux) John Daniel Kingston, front center, kneels in front of three of his daughters as they hold their wedding certificates July 3, 2008, in Grand Junction, Colo. Shanell DeRieux, second row left, was 18; the other two girls were 16. He lived on month day 1940, at address, Washington. Create Biography Exhibiting LGBTQ+ tendencies can indicate impure blood, according to the lawsuit. Earlier in its history, the Kingston Group had plural wives under age 18. Regardless, all those applying should do so legally.. A lawsuit alleges leaders of a Utah polygamous sect bilked federal student aid programs by instructing teenagers to omit their fathers and other sources of income when applying for benefits. The pressure became so intense DeRieux stopped going to dances. Everyone in the Order knew that she controlled the purse strings for the operation but few were aware that she was sitting on a hidden stash of silver. The DCCS is a financial cooperative established by his uncle Elden Kingston in 1935. They had sped off in a Honda sedan. Noticing Stephen, he put the barbells down and came over to the boy. While his dad was running the order from Salt Lake City, Stephen grew up on a cattle ranch called Washakie, near the Idaho border. 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. Boys are taught they will need to receive revelation from God on whom to marry. Markey said the plaintiffs are making the case to a judge that the Kingston Group is a cult and criminal enterprise rather than a religion. Former and current members of the Kingston Group say that kids are taught from a young age they one day will need to pray about whom to marry. 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