{"id":338928,"date":"2026-07-13T21:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338928\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:29:08","slug":"man-accused-of-assaulting-mother-and-son-in-fort-lauderdale-has-extensive-criminal-history-nbc-6-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338928\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of assaulting mother and son in Fort Lauderdale has extensive criminal history \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man charged with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcmiami.com\/news\/local\/mother-relieved-after-man-accused-of-attacking-her-and-son-12-in-fort-lauderdale-arrested\/3832656\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nbcmiami.com\/news\/local\/mother-relieved-after-man-accused-of-attacking-her-and-son-12-in-fort-lauderdale-arrested\/3832656\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">assaulting a woman and her 12-year-old son with autism<\/a> in Fort Lauderdale has an extensive criminal history that goes back to the 90s, records showed. <\/p>\n<p>Hutch Benjamin, 44, \u00a0was charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon for the assault that was caught on camera.<\/p>\n<p>According to Fort Lauderdale Police, at around 7:30 a.m., the mother and her 12-year-old son were walking in the 1000 block of Northwest Fifth Avenue when an unknown person hit them with a blunt object. The suspect then fled the area.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcmiami.com\/news\/local\/video-shows-mother-and-son-being-attacked-by-stranger-in-fort-lauderdale\/3831195\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Surveillance video<\/a>\u00a0released by police shows the pair being attacked by a man carrying what the mother described as either a cane or a bat.<\/p>\n<p>Court records show he\u2019s spent much of the last 25 years in prison for violent crimes, including aggravated battery, aggravated assault, attempted robbery and various drug-related charges.<\/p>\n<p>After being arrested last October for violating probation in an armed robbery case, he pleaded no contest and was released from jail on May 6.<\/p>\n<p>Court records also mention a history of mental illness.<\/p>\n<p>In March, his defense attorney filed a motion arguing Benjamin \u201chas been diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia, bipolar type.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man charged with assaulting a woman and her 12-year-old son with autism in Fort Lauderdale has an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1219,249,251,250],"class_list":["post-338928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}