*Benjamin Hollins was presumed dead after a witness claimed he jumped to his death off a bride and his body was never recovered.
As it turns out, Hollins allegedly faked his death to avoid registering as a sex offender. Now he’s back in custody after assuming a new identity in Arizona, People reports.
The 50-year-old convicted sex offender was thought to have jumped off the Theodore Roosevelt Lake Bridge.Arizona in October 2023. But after an extension search, authorities never found a body.
Here’s the backstory… more than 20 yeas ago, Hollins was convicted as a sex offender in California. By 2018, when he moved to Arizona City, he was not registered as a sex offender. He ultimately landed a job as a behavioral health counselor, where he kidnapped and attempted to molest a 16-year-old client.
NEW: Convicted s*x offender arrested after faking his own death to live under a new name with an unsuspecting family including young kids
“Nice try, Benjamin. We found you. You’re not dead. We’re going to hold you accountable”
Benjamin Hollins, 50, was arrested in Mesa, Arizona… pic.twitter.com/BRyrM1OdcZ
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) May 17, 2024
After pleading guilty in the case, he was required to register every year as a sex offender in exchange for supervised probation. As a result, he persuaded a woman to file a false report in order to fake his own death in 2023, authorities say.
But investigators were not convinced that Hollins was dead. They tracked him down this month to a home in Mesa, Ariz. He was living under a fake name with a family that “had no idea about his history,” per authorities. The family had young children.
SWAT team members arrested Hollins on May 14, booking him into the Pinal County Detention Center.
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