A Colorado child molester who hid out in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for four years has agreed to plead to a charge for not registering as a sex offender in either state.
Ben Murray was No. 8 on Colorado’s top 100 Most Wanted Sex Offenders list when he was found in Cheyenne, having been convicted of attempted sexual assault of a child in 2015. He was sentenced to six years in a Colorado prison, but was released for parole sometime around November of 2019, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed last month in the federal U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
Murray struck a plea agreement Friday, but the details of the deal have not been made available to the public.
Plea agreements involve a defendant giving some variation of a guilty plea to the court in exchange for a lesser sentence, lesser charge or other favorable terms.
Dropped Off
Murray registered in the Colorado sex offender registry in 2019 when he was out on parole, and again on Feb. 18, 2020.
But by Aug. 31, 2020, the Colorado Board of Parole had issued an arrest warrant for Murray for violating his parole, the affidavit says.
The was due for his annual registration in Aurora, Colorado, Jan. 12, 2021, but he never showed.
Two years later, the Aurora Police Department issued an arrest warrant for Murray.
The Wyoming Fugitive Task Force worked with Colorado authorities, the latter reportedly having learned that Murray was hiding out in Cheyenne.
The Wyoming Fugitive Task Force found Murray in Cheyenne and arrested him without incident Feb. 8 of this year.
Posed As Brother
Investigators interviewed him at the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department, where he allegedly admitted fleeing to Cheyenne in 2020, failing to register as a sex offender, and using his brother’s name and birth date during his “numerous” contacts with Cheyenne police.
Murray also signed in to a Cheyenne homeless shelter using his brother’s name, the affidavit says. He was there for a four-day span in February, under his brother’s name.
Murray’s various police contacts included traffic violations, trespassing, field interviews and burglaries, says the document.
Unless his plea agreement says otherwise (and the judge accepts his plea agreement), Murray could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000, for the federal charge of failing to register as a sex offender.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
