American man who married 17 women faces 973 years in jail

A 43-year-old Detroit, USA man, Benjamin Smith, faces the likelihood of being sentenced to a total of 973 years in prison after he was arrested in connection with what the police call 'one of the worst case of polygamy in the history of the country', after it was discovered that he secretly married 17 women in different parts of the country and had 29 children in total, reports World News Daily.

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Smith who used fake identification cards while going on his web of lies for the whole of 15 years, had wives across the states of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, without any of them being aware, and would probably had gone unnoticed until he got entangled with a 26-year-old lawyer, Jane Wilson, who hired private detectives and his cover was blown open.

"Mr. Smith could probably have continued his fraud for years, if he hadn’t chosen to marry Jane Wilson, in June. The young lawyer turned out to be a lot more skeptical and investigative than his other partners, and she rapidly discovered the truth about his secret lives.

Wilson hired a private investigator to follow her husband because she doubted that he was really the secret agent he told her.

The detective followed him for two weeks and discovered everything about his secret lives," the platform reports.

Smith reportedly used a large number of false identities, which allowed him to marry the women without the authorities noticing.

A search of his vehicle and of a storage space that he rented, revealed hundreds of legal documents and cards, including social security numbers, birth certificates, driver’s licenses and credit cards, linked to a total of 27 distinct identities.

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Smith who has been unemployed since 2003, told his multiple wives that he was either a corporate executive, a trucker, or even a secret agent, to justify his many absences and instead of working, he was actually spending most of the time visiting his various families and was living mostly by stealing his wives’ money.

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He now faces a total of 233 criminal charges before the Utah State court, including polygamy, fraud, forgery, theft and felony and if found guilty, he could be condemned to a maximum of 973 years in jail.