Chicago Man Presumed Dead Found Living in Vegas

In 1979 Arthur Jones, a forty year old commodities broker, left his Chicago home and never returned. A court declared Jones legally dead in 1986, and his wife and three children received $47,000 in survivor benefits from Social Security.

Nevada police found Arthur Jones living in Las Vegas on July 19. The Nevada state attorney general’s office has since charged Jones with multiple counts of fraud, identity theft, and burglary.

When Jones left Chicago in 1979 he paid an associated $800 for a new Social Security Number, and a fake driver’s license and birth certificate. Jones then moved around the country, eventually stopping in Las Vegas where he began working for a Casino.

Jones was caught after the Arizona man whose Social Security number he had been using reported that his statements showed income from Las Vegas casinos where he had never been employed. The Social Security Administration launched an investigation which led to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles that issued Jones a driver’s license in 1988. When Jones renewed his license in 2008, investigators contacted the DMV which eventually led to Jones’ discovery.

See Ashley Powers and Lisa Black, Chicago broker presumed dead turns up in Vegas, The Lost Angeles Times, Jul. 23 2011.