They also claimed to believe that marriage is a personal choice that should not be coerced. In a response to the allegations against it, the Kingston Group – also known officially as the Davis County Cooperative Society and internally as “the Order” – said its current policy prohibits plural marriage for members under 18. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Roger Hoole, declined to elaborate beyond his clients’ lawsuit or respond to requests for interviews with former group members. The suit alleges episodes of rape aimed at forcing pregnancy, group members covering up years of sexual abuse and indoctrinating children in elementary school about plural marriage.
The lawsuit contains explicit details of how Kingston Group leaders – who also own and operate several businesses and schools in the suburbs of Utah’s capital, Salt Lake City – allegedly arrange incestuous and sometimes underage marriages between teenage girls and adult men with exalted status to produce hundreds of children.