Tampa, Florida – United States Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez announced the arrest and filing of a criminal complaint charging Douglas E. Bennett (76, Clearwater) with passport fraud and aggravated identity theft. Bennett was arrested on November 4, 2020. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 12 years in federal prison.
According to the complaint, in or around July 2016, Bennett submitted a passport application using the name, date of birth, and Social Security number of a dead child who had died in 1945. When applying for this passport, Bennett failed to disclose his true identity. Bennett was a former instructor at Mount Holyoke College. He had assumed the identity of a boy who died near the college in 1945.
In 1975, Bennett was convicted by a jury in Connecticut of robbery, kidnapping, sexual contact, rape, and deviate sexual intercourse. He was sentenced to 9 – 18 years in Connecticut State Prison. Bennett, however, never turned himself in to begin his sentence. Records show, in 1977, he assumed the identity of the individual who had died in 1945 and remained a fugitive for more than 40 years.
On November 4, 2020, Bennett was arrested pursuant to both the federal and State of Connecticut warrants. A fingerprint comparison confirmed that Bennett was the same person convicted in Connecticut in 1975. At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of a Florida driver license bearing the false identifying information, but containing Bennett’s photograph.
A complaint is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
This case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, and with substantial support from the Department of State National Passport Center, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Connecticut U.S. Marshals Task Force. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Erin Favorit.