Daughter breaks down as she talks about assaults by father

Robert Macy

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999 | 9:22 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - The teen-age daughter of a Marine who faked his own death sobbed Wednesday as she testified that her father sexually assaulted her almost nightly for three years.

The ordeal came to an end, she said, when she went to police after learning he was also assaulting her younger sister.

The tearful testimony came in a military hearing for Arthur Bennett, who allegedly faked his own death in 1993, assumed a new identity, and moved to Hurricane, Utah, with his wife and three daughters.

The current hearing is to determine whether he will face court-martial for allegedly sexually assaulting children of fellow Marines in Okinawa, Japan, and Yuma, Ariz.

Bennett was facing a court-martial in Yuma when he allegedly set fire to his trailer at a remote location on Lake Mead, southeast of here. Police have never identified the body found inside the trailer and Bennett faces murder charges here in connection with that case.

His 17-year-old daughter testified Wednesday she was distraught when she was told her father had died in the fire "because he was the best father." Months later the daughters were led into a room where they found their father alive, wearing a red beard and blue contact lenses to help conceal his real identity.

The euphoria turned to a nightmare, she testified, when her father sexually assaulted her in a trailer park in Las Vegas, then "about every night" when the family moved to the tiny town of Hurricane, Utah.

She kept secret his faked death and assaults because he told her "if anyone ever found out, we'd go to foster homes and he'd go to jail and face the death penalty."

She said the assaults began in 1995 and ended in October 1997 after she went to police. Police had suspected that Bennett, known in Hurricane as Joe Benson, had been assaulting young women, but the oldest of the three daughters had denied the attacks in an effort to protect her father.

"He was the best father; he took care of us," she testified.

Talking softly and fighting back tears, she said she continued to lie about her father's actions until she learned he had also assaulted her sister, who is now 15.

"I wanted him to stop," she said, sobbing. "I didn't want him to go to jail."

Bennett was charged in Utah with sexual assault involving three teen-agers - two of them his older daughters. He pleaded no contest in May to three second-degree felony charges of sexual abuse and was sentenced to three one-to-15-year prison terms.

He was then brought to Nevada to faces charges of murder, arson, kidnapping, insurance fraud, theft and sexual assault of a minor. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek the death penalty in the trailer fire.

His family collected $200,000 in insurance at the time of his reported death.

Cathy Roberts, Bennett's former sister-in-law, testified at Wednesday's hearing that he had plotted with family members about faking his death.

"He said he needed to fake his death because he was going overseas on a special mission," Roberts said of Bennett.

Roberts was married at the time to Arthur Bennett's brother, Scott. She said she was to pick Arthur Bennett up at the trailer after the fire, but plans where changed.

And she said she went with the Bennett brothers and their mother to a motel to get Bennett settled after the trailer fire.

Scott Bennett tapped his foot nervously as his daughter testified she was also sexually assaulted by Arthur Bennett.

The girl told of spending the summer of 1995 with the Bennett family in Hurricane, when she was 12 years old.

"I was scared to do anything," the girl testified as Scott Bennett watched her intently, sometimes glaring at his brother. "Arthur told me I should keep quiet or I better kiss my family goodbye. He said he went out and killed people in their homes for a living."

After his daughter's testimony, Scott Bennett spoke bitterly of his brother.

"I think he's a dog," Scott Bennett said. "He raped my daughter."