Court martial proceedings to begin for Arthur Bennett

Robert Macy

Monday, July 12, 1999 | 4:34 a.m.

Five years after he allegedly faked his own death to avoid a court martial on charges of sexually assaulting daughters of fellow Marines, Arthur Bennett is scheduled to face a military tribunal Wednesday.

A five-member jury will be selected from a panel of 12 officers and enlisted men chosen to determine his fate. The court martial could take up to two weeks.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday. In a hearing Monday afternoon, defense attorneys were granted a continuance until Wednesday.

Bennett is currently in military custody pending the outcome of his court martial hearing. Then he faces Nevada charges, including murder, in the death of an unidentified person found in the burned out shell of his trailer home near Lake Mead in February 1994.

Military authorities ruled the body was that of Bennett, the remains were buried in a veterans' cemetery in Boulder City, Nev., and his survivors began receiving military insurance and other death benefits.

The alleged scheme came unraveled in October 1997 when Bennett's two teen-age daughters went to police in Hurricane, Utah, saying they had been sexually abused by their father.

In May 1998, Bennett pleaded no contest in St. George, Utah to three second-degree felony charges of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14. Each charge carries a sentence of one-to-15 years in prison.

Bennett was then brought to Las Vegas to face charges including murder, arson, kidnapping, insurance fraud and theft in connection with the trailer fire. The victim, burned beyond recognition, has never been identified. Clark County authorities say they will seek the death penalty in the murder case, set for trial next February.

This week's court martial was ordered following an Article 32 hearing in February. The military equivalent of a preliminary hearing, it featured testimony by two of Bennett's daughters, his ex-wife, Amelia, and fellow Marines whose daughters were allegedly assaulted by Bennett.

Bennett's 17-year-old daughter testified in the Article 32 hearing that he sexually assaulted her "about every night" between 1995 and 1997, when the family lived in Hurricane, where Bennett changed his name and was known as Joe Benson.