This is Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio. Did fearful jurors issue a sham verdict because they were panicked about deliberating too long during the coronavirus pandemic. A defendant is blaming the coronavirus for his guilty verdict. After eight hours of deliberations and a seven week trial, a Salt Lake City jury found businessman Left German guilty of leading a conspiracy to cheat US tax authorities of five million dollars through a program designed to promote clean fuels.
Joining me is David voriekis Bloomberg Projects reporter David. This was a conviction of a Los Angeles businessman for leading a biofuel conspiracy with a Utah polygamous group that's a
shadowy Mormon offshoot known as the Order. Sounds interesting to say The least tell us about the case involved Left Derman, who three year old man from Los Angeles who had a small oil and death empire in southern California, and the prosecutors said that he teamed up with a pair of brothers and other relatives there from Utah, the Kingston brothers Jacob and Isaiah, and what they did was produced bio diesel fuel, which made them eligible for credits that
were administered by the Internal Revenue Service of up to two dollars of barrel. And essentially, what the prosecutors said is that over several years the kingston submitted Tony tax credit applications and defrauded acts there eventually hundreds of millions of dollars. What the trial was about was how German teamed up with the Kingston's and really accelerated this fraud
through a variety of teams. And it was a fascinating trial about this businessman left German who initilated the Kingston's and placed a lot of assets and money in the names of others, but profited off those actions. So the jury did deliberate eight hours. I've seen juryors go back to a jury room for long enough to vote and come back out. So why does the defense claim that
they were afraid to deliberate. Well, what happened in the deliberations is they started last Thursday afternoon and then they returned Monday and had a verdict by about one thirty Monday afternoon. The defense attorney Mark Garrigoas from Los Angeles, who has represented a lot of celebrities in his career. Michael Jackson said that the jury had no questions at all,
which sounded suspicious to him. And one of the jurors was excused because he had pneumonia after he had been wearing a mask, and another juror was excused, and they believed that the jury was acting out of panic because when the judge asked the panel who was the fourth person,
they pointed to the empty chair. Now, prosecutors said that there was no basis at all for saying that this denied Derman affair and impartial jury, and they pointed out that the jury during its deliberations did not send any notes about the COVID nineteen epidemic, and so that there's no basis to conclude that it played any role in their deliberations. The four members of the Mormon group pleaded
guilty before trial, So did they testify against Derman? Was the evidence at trial solid Two of the brothers, Jacob and Isaiah Kingston testify and they were amongst five sellons
who were prosecution witnesses who testified against Love Derman. And there was a great deal of documentary evidence about how money moved and there are also people like Germans employees who testified his business partners, his private jet pilot, and the government believed that they built a very strong and elaborate case that you know, not only rested on the
testimony of convicted sellons, but hellout documentary corroborations. So the prosecutor, who is the u S Attorney for the area, explained why this case was important to the state of Utah. What did he say? The U S Attorney in Utah, John Huber, said that basically, the Kingston's were a close knit insular community who practiced polygamy and that they had been suspected in breaking the law for decades, but that
authorities could never build a case against them. And they said that, you know, the Kingston's, Jacob and Isaiah Kingston, began this biodegal fuel frauds and cheated the government out of tens of millions of dollars. But once left Derman
joined the group. He was not actually part of the order, but once he joined the fraud it really took off, and then it became a fraud in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and they submitted a total of more than a billion dollars in tradgulent claims, about half of which were honored. So essentially, the U. S Attorney in Utah felt this was a big victory against a group that operates like an organized crime group and had for
many years in Utah without prosecution. And Derman himself, prosecutors wanted him locked up before trial because he projected a
menacing air and other reasons. Yeah, he had been in custody since August of eighteen, and there was a lot of testimony pre trial from agents who said the witnesses were very concerned for their physical safety, that German surrounded himself with large, menacing people, and there was quite a bit of testimony about how German was protected by corrupt law enforcement officials both on the state and federal level. He called it his umbrella of protection and that was
part of the trial. Jacob Kingston testifying about that umbrella of protection which allowed German to carry out his scheme. So who will decide whether or not the jurors were
afraid to deliberate? Will it be the trial judge? It'll be the trial judge in Salt Lake City, Jill Parish, She's a federal district judge, but it's really not clear when this will happen because immediately after this verdict, the appeals court covering Utah closed down the courthouse to the public and they'll run on sort of a skeletal staff. So that's clearly going to push back the appeal proceedings as it's done in courthouses around the country. Thanks for
being on the Bloomberg Law Show, David. That's David voiags Bloomberg Projects Reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg