CENTERTON : Ex-mayor enters plea of innocent to forgery
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008
BENTONVILLE — Former Centerton Mayor Ken Williams pleaded innocent Monday to a charge in connection with his use of a dead man’s identity.
Williams, whose legal name was Don LaRose, is charged with one count of second-degree forgery in Benton County Circuit Court. The charge carries a sentence of three to 10 years in prison and up to a $ 10, 000 fine.
In May, Williams, 68, legally changed his name from Don LaRose to B. Ken Williams.
Williams is accused of fraudulently signing the name of Bruce Kent Williams or variations of that name on tax returns, government documents and election documents between 2000 and 2008, according to court documents.
Williams, the former mayor of Centerton, resigned in November after Benton County Daily Record reporters discovered he was actually LaRose, a former Baptist minister who disappeared from public view twice — once in the mid-1970 s and again in 1980.
In November 1975, LaRose made headlines around Maine, N. Y., when the then 34-year-old pastor disappeared from the First Baptist Church.
According to news reports at the time, LaRose claimed to have been teaching a course on Satan and had received threatening letters from Satanists who accused him of blasphemy.
When LaRose was found more than three months later, his claims of abduction and brainwashing turned out to be unfounded. An investigation by detectives revealed LaRose had caused his own disappearance.
LaRose was found in Minneapolis, living under the name Bruce Kent Williams.
He claimed to be the son of a Dr. and Mrs. Kent Williams of Middleport, N. Y., according to an undated story in the Teapot Hollow Journal and verified by Middleport police.
Bruce Kent Williams died in a car accident in Norwich, N. Y., in 1958.
The second disappearance happened in 1980 while LaRose led a church in Hammond, Ind. He left behind a wife and children.
After his 1980 disappearance, Williams resurfaced in Northwest Arkansas and became a well-known radio personality at KURM-AM, a Rogers radio station. He became mayor of Centerton in July 2001, when he was appointed to the position to fill a vacancy created by a resignation.
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