Cochise County – A Cochise County man placed on the Sierra Vista Police Department’s “Most Wanted” list in 2017 will find out later this month when he will stand trial on 18 felonies including forgery, sexual exploitation of a minor, and co-opting the identity of Sierra Vista Mayor Rick Mueller.
Benjamin Nathaniel Bullard has been ordered by Judge Timothy Dickerson to appear at a March 9 trial setting hearing. He has been in the Cochise County jail on a $100,000 cash-only bail order since his Oct. 31, 2018 arrest in Puebla, Mexico where he was working at a hospital after assuming the identity of a deceased doctor.
Bullard, 41, faces more than 80 years in prison if convicted of all 18 counts. Several of the charges stem from frauds and thefts he allegedly committed in early 2017 by taking the identity -and money- of several men he met via social media. Another charge involves a letter received by a relative of Bullard in April 2017 which purported to be from Mueller.
According to a Sierra Vista PD report, the letter stated Bullard was “exonerated of all charges” related to a January 2017 criminal fraud report after the mayor reviewed the evidence. It also stated two officers were terminated in connection to the investigation.
But Mueller had no such involvement and no officers were fired, the report stated. In addition, the address and phone number on the letterhead did not belong to the city nor the mayor, whose name was twice misspelled in the letter.
Then, while searching Bullard’s computer for evidence of his alleged financial crimes, detectives unexpectedly found more than 900 video clips of child pornography. Some of the images depicted children under age 15 being sexually abused by adults.
A county grand jury indicted Bullard in October 2017 but he had left Cochise County. That’s when Sierra Vista Detective Colin Festa turned to the Arizona WANTED Violent Offender Taskforce led by the U.S. Marshals.
Bullard was taken into custody one year later by Mexican authorities and then extradited to the United States. He was booked into the county jail on Nov. 9, 2018. Two prior trial dates have been vacated for various reasons.