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James Bennett was a counterfeiter, con artist, bomber, and murderer. He arranged a scheme involving forged documents in order to discredit a Catholic charity.

History[]

Bennett turned to counterfeiting from a young age as a means to reacquire objects his mother Betty compulsively donated to the Brother Jerome Foundation, a Catholic charitable organization. He changed the mint-marks on coins through electroplating and later bargained them with the foundation on the pretense they were rare and valuable. Bennett, however, grew up resentful towards the foundation which he accused of profiting from his mother compulsion, eventually deciding to discredit and destroy the charity for good. Having found a job as a document dealer, expert, and authenticator, he worked as a consultant for Richard Sullivan and his son Sean, who both led the organization.

Just as Brother Jerome's sainthood was going to be proclaimed, consequently enhancing the prestige of the foundation, Bennett mailed a lye bomb to Louise Politano. Politano was a social worker to whom Brother Jerome allegedly appeared in a dream while being affected by polio, during her youth, and whom miraculously healed soon afterwards. He also fabricated evidence that Louise had lied regarding the dream to cover up a crush she had developed on a priest. All of this was perpetrated in order to produce a plausible motive for the foundation to hurt Louise. Eventually, James' scheme was overturned by MCS Detectives Goren and Eames, who were able to identify the forged documents provided to the foundation by Bennett. They later made Bennett himself confess about his crimes in front of his elderly mother. (CI: "The Saint")

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