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Today in a Salt Lake City Courtroom, Jacob Kingston said he sent $50,000 US dollars to John Saldivar in Miami.  That is the most explosive allegation coming out of Utah where, this morning, testimony turned to Belize.

It started in early 2014, when Kingston and Lev Dermen travelled to Belize and Dermen promised to pay for John Saldivar’s re-election campaign. 

Kingston said there was a meeting between three of them where Saldivar said he and three or four members of his party all needed financial help getting reelected and wanted cash.  Now, very importantly, prosecutors didn’t ask for any names of those party members. Â But, the meeting ended with Dermen agreeing to pay for the campaigns, Kingston said. 

And then they went to the text exchange that Kingston had with Saldivar to follow up on that meeting.   Those text messages were exchanged on February 11, 2014 - six years ago to the date. 

Kingston did not read directly from the text message which were introduced into evidence, but he summarized them.   In the exchange, as described by Kingston, Saldivar tells Kingston he is nervous about the commitment Dermen had made because he had not heard from him.  Kingston said, quote, “He needed the money that was promised to him,â€￾ end quote. Â  Kingston says Saldivar then asked him for the money. Kingston said he offered to wire the money, but Saldivar refused, saying a wire transfer was not a good idea. Kingston said he then asked Saldivar if he could travel to Miami the following day - Feb. 12 - to meet one of Kingston’s associates who could bring him the money in cash. Â  He says Saldivar agreed. And, Kingston testified that he had $50,000 in cash delivered to Saldivar  - money he said he got from Lev Dermen.  He also added that Saldivar told him that his arrangement with Dermen was that he would receive $25,000 in cash every month for the campaign. 

Prosecutors did not ask Kingston for any more details about that payment or any future payments related to Dermen’s promise to Saldivar.

Here are direct quotes form the text messages that were shown to the jury:  

“Really need the February tranche,â€￾ Saldivar wrote when he asked Kingston for money. 

And when Kingston suggested the Miami meeting - 

Saldivar replied: “OK. I will head to Miami Thursday.â€￾

Again, direct quotes shown to the jury.  

Now, for the purpose of the prosecution, this was all to illustrate that Dermen had what they called an “umbrellaâ€￾ of powerful people who would protect him from scrutiny - basically, public officials in Belize, in the US and in Turkey. Kingston said the Saldivar transaction strengthened and reinforced that perception. 

And, in Belize, it solidifies the perception that Saldivar took money from Dermen - which, was widely believed by everyone, except apparently, the UDP delegates.  We note that John Saldivar has constantly denied this - and he did so as recently as Sunday, but now text messages have been reproduced in court which say otherwise.  Again, here is what the Prime Minister said on January 15th if such evidence came out: