A convicted sex offender attempted to fake his own death in order to avoid registering, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb announced in a video statement shared on social media last week.
Benjamin Hollins, 50, was arrested last Tuesday (May 14), around seven months after he allegedly had a woman claim that he jumped off the Roosevelt Bridge to his death.
“Now, a lot of resources were wasted looking for his body, which was clearly not found, because he wasn’t dead," Sheriff Lamb said in the video.
Hollis was being held at the Pinal County Jail on Saturday (May 18) but didn't appear to have an attorney listed, according to court records obtained by NBC News. Lamb said Hollins had already been convicted in California for more than 20 years and was required to register as a sex offender yearly in Arizona due to a 2018 molestation case within the state.
Hollins pleaded guilty to a kidnapping-related charge and had his sexual abuse count dismissed in relation to the 2018 case, according to online Pinal County court records. Hollins' sex offender status was lapsed due to the false death report before police later found him living under an assumed name in Mesa in the adjacent Maricopa County, at which point he was arrested by a Pinal County task force, according to Lamb.
Hollins had previously failed to register his sex offender status in 2019 and once again in 2022 in relation to a name or address change, according to court records obtained by NBC News.