INDIANAPOLIS -- A registered sexually violent predator is accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl he was babysitting last month, according to charges filed Friday in Marion County.
Marion County sheriff's deputies served the warrant on 64-year-old William E. Bennett around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at his home in the 2200 block of East Prospect Street.
Court records show prosecutors filed new charges of felony child molesting against Bennett on Friday. A warrant for his arrest was issued the same day.
Bennett is already a registered sexually violent predator stemming from a 1996 conviction on two counts of child molesting.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for that conviction. IDOC records show he was released in November 2004.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the 5-year-old girl told her mother that Bennett – who she referred to as "Uncle Bill" – had touched her between her legs while he was babysitting her. She said Bennett told her that if she told her mother, her mother would hurt her, and if she told police the police would hurt her.
The incident allegedly occurred while Bennett was babysitting the 5-year-old while her mother was running an errand.
The mother told police she was aware that Bennett was a registered sexually violent predator but that she felt she "didn't have any reason not to trust" him.
Bennett denied the allegations to police, saying he has watched the 5-year-old girl and her sibling in the past, but that he had never touched them inappropriately. Bennett said he did check the child's pull-up diaper at one point to see if she needed to be changed. He told police that he had known the child and her family for approximately six months and that the kids do call him "Uncle Bill."
Bennett's roommate, Mark Kline – who is also a registered sex offender – told police he observed Bennett exhibiting strange behavior lately, including one incident where he returned home to find that Bennett had brought the 5-year-old girl to their house. Kline told police he reprimanded Bennett because the girl shouldn't be at their house, at which point he said Bennett told him, "I messed up."
Kline also told police he thought Bennett was "exhibiting signs of a person that has started to offend again," based on things he'd learned in his own sex offender therapy classes.
Bennett was being held at the Marion County Jail awaiting an initial hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday.
