Bennett family members not off hook in faked death

Bill Gang

Thursday, July 15, 1999 | 10:27 a.m.

The U.S. Marine entourage that was poised for Arthur Bennett's court-martial before he hanged himself in the county jail late Monday has packed up and gone.

The Clark County prosecutors preparing for Bennett's trial in February on charges he committed a fiery murder in 1994 to fake his own death and avoid military discipline for sex crimes have moved on to other cases.

But federal authorities are still pursuing the April charges filed against four of Bennett's family members alleging they defrauded the government by accepting more than $200,000 in military life insurance and another $100,000 in military and Social Security death benefits.

Bennett's military benefits also are under review by Marine lawyers, who are researching whether his three daughters, all under 18, will receive monthly payments now that their father actually is dead, said Capt. Winston Jimenez, spokesman for the Marine Corps in Yuma, Ariz.

"The children were victims," Jimenez said.

But Bennett will not receive a military burial or be buried in a veterans cemetery this time, said Maj. Stephen Kaye, a Marine spokesman at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, Calif.

The federal indictment names Bennett's mother, two brothers and his ex-wife on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Bennett, 45, also had been indicted in the federal case.

The indictment includes allegations that the family members participated in the plot to fake Bennett's death.

A day before Bennett's travel trailer exploded in fire at a Lake Mead campsite on Feb. 3, 1994, killing a still unidentified man inside, he is alleged to have met with the four other defendants at his mother's apartment to discuss their roles.

Not indicted but liberally mentioned in the indictment is Bennett's sister, Linda Walker, whose Lima, Ohio, home is said to have been Bennett's initial destination.

Bennett was facing military charges at the time of sexual misconduct involving girls in Yuma and Okinawa, Japan, and other sexual misconduct and spousal abuse charges involving his wife at the time in Yuma.

The indictment states that the day after the explosion, "Arthur Bennett telephoned Linda Walker in Lima, Ohio, and advised her, 'It's done. I'm on my way.' "

Two days later, Walker was in Las Vegas with other family members -- including Bennett's three children -- to attend funeral services for the man who wasn't dead.

Before the military funeral, the indictment says, Walker had told the defendants that Bennett was alive and staying at her Ohio home.

On Feb. 15, 1994, Bennett's former wife, Amelia Bennett, applied for Social Security Survivors Benefits in Yucca Valley, Calif., on behalf of the couple's three daughters. The next day she applied for dependency compensation through Veterans Affairs, the indictment charges.

On Feb. 18, 1994, Bennett's mother, Ellen Bennett, applied for her son's life insurance and received a check for more than $200,000 three months later.

According to the indictment, Walker distributed more than $11,000 total to two brothers, Scott and David Bennett, and more than $12,000 to another brother, Bruce Bennett.

In June 1994 Amelia Bennett began receiving the first of the $2,000 monthly checks from Social Security and the next month the $500 monthly military compensation for dependents began arriving.

The indictment charges the defendants used "deceit, craft, trickery and means that are dishonest" to procure the federal death benefits.

Bennett stayed in Ohio until December 1994 when he returned to Las Vegas -- using the false identity of Joseph Benson -- and was reunited with Amelia Bennett and their three children. They moved to Hurricane, Utah, 150 miles north of Las Vegas and lived ostensibly on the death benefits and insurance proceeds until 1997.

Amelia Bennett worked at a Mesquite casino while Bennett claimed to be living off Marine retirement pay, according to Hurricane, Utah, Police Detective Shane Copeland.

That was when he was arrested on sexual assault charges involving two of his own daughters and one of their friends.

A check of his fingerprints revealed that Benson was Bennett.

"There is no doubt in my mind he did what we charged him with," Copeland said, adding he was disappointed that Bennett continued to deny all of the allegations against him in suicide notes he left.

"You would think he would write a letter saying he was sorry," Copeland said.