Sex offender arrested after faking his death to avoid registration, sheriff says

A convicted sex offender was arrested in Arizona on Tuesday, seven months after he allegedly faked his own death to avoid registration.

In October, 50-year-old Benjamin Hollins allegedly had a woman file a false police report claiming he had killed himself by jumping from the Theodore Roosevelt Lake Bridge in Roosevelt, Arizona.

In a video statement posted on Facebook, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said his department “wasted a lot of resources” searching for Hollins’ body, “which obviously was not found because he was not dead.”

“Chandler PD did not give up. They investigated further and found him,” Lamb said. Police said they discovered Hollins in Mesa, Arizona, with a family with children who did not know his identity.

He was arrested by a Pinal County Regional SWAT team and was being held in the Pinal County Jail on Saturday. Hollins was convicted as a sex offender in California more than 20 years ago but did not register as a sex offender when he moved to Arizona in 2018, where he worked as a behavioral health counselor.

That same year, he was charged with kidnapping and molesting one of his 16-year-old clients, according to AZ Family. He pleaded guilty and as part of a plea deal the sexual abuse charge was dropped. Hollins also failed to register as a sex offender in 2019, and despite allegedly pretending to be dead, his sex offender registration lapsed.

“Nice try, Benjamin,” Lamb said. “We found you. You are not dead. We will hold you accountable.”

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