Waco social media personality Akylon Benson pleads guilty to scamming elderly man with dementia

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - A Waco social media personality who recorded a live feed of him scamming a 73-year-old man with dementia in December 2022 pleaded guilty to a state jail felony charge Monday.

Akylon Kyle Benson, 24, who formerly identified himself on social media as “executive director” of a local group that purports to catch alleged child sex predators, pleaded guilty to exploitation of an elderly person.

Benson also claims to be the owner of a Facebook “news” page.

Benson, who also has a pending misdemeanor charge of unlawful restraint, acknowledged his guilt in exchange from a recommendation from the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office that he be placed on three years’ felony deferred probation.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Benson will have no access to social media platforms throughout the term of probation, and the misdemeanor unlawful restraint charge will not be pursued, said prosecutor Will Hix.

Judge Thomas West of 19^th State District Court will sentence Benson in February after reviewing a background report compiled by probation officers.

Benson’s attorney, Mark Morris, did not return messages left Monday at his office and on his cell phone.

According to arrest documents, police watched a recording of a live feed of Benson “scamming” a man with dementia. The video showed Benson driving the man to a bank and to a gas station to withdraw cash from teller machines.

“Akylon on video talks about getting the credit card from the victim, and uses the PIN number to withdraw cash himself,” an arrest affidavit alleges.

The victim told police he was having trouble finding his medication, which he put in the front seat of Benson’s car. The officer found the bag of medication in the back seat, and the victim told the officer that Benson must have put it in the back.

“On the live video, Akylon grabs the bag and placed it behind him, and states, ‘I will have you croaking, you aren’t getting them until I get my money,” the officer wrote in the complaint.

The affidavit alleges the man agreed to give Benson $200, but says Benson “shortchanges him and states that the victim only gave him $100.”

So the man gave Benson another $100, according to arrest records.

After Benson was taken into custody, officers found $180 in cash in his pocket. After arriving at the jail, officers found another $341 and ATM receipts on Benson, police alleged.

The unlawful restraint arrest came earlier this year and is related to a December 2024 incident in which Benson claimed he was acting in his capacity as the self-appointed director of Waco PED Patrol.

““The group follows a trend seen by other social media vigilante groups by using ‘decoys’ and ‘catchers’ to perform sting style catches on persons they suspect of trying to meet minors for sex,” a detective wrote in the arrest complaint.

McLennan County Sheriff’s Office investigators said the “catch” is live-streamed on Facebook for the “purposes of humiliating the person and creating online content to generate followers with the intention of making money.”

According to authorities, the group had an “escalating pattern of confronting people in public and at residences, to the point of restricting a person’s movement.”

The affidavit alleges that Benson has livestreamed videos of himself armed with pepper spray and a folding knife while claiming to have armed security for protection during these “catches.”

During one livestream in particular, the document states, one of the group members is seen “wearing a pistol.”

On April 16, 2025, the Waco PED Patrol Facebook page shared a social media post proclaiming it had “caught a pedophile” and included a photo of the individual. Detectives searched Benson’s own personal Facebook profile and found a livestream showing the “arrest” of the alleged pedophile.

The video shows Benson picking up the “victim” and driving that person around Waco for approximately 20 minutes before parking underneath the Herring Avenue bridge near Pecan Bottom Park in Cameron Park, the detective wrote in the affidavit.

The conversation, according to the detective, started out “casual,” but then escalated when Benson began accusing the “victim” of messaging one of Benson’s “decoys” the day before. The decoy allegedly claimed to be a 15-year-old girl, the detective wrote in the warrant.

In the livestream, the victim repeatedly denied Benson’s accusations and explained to Benson that he had the wrong person.

Benson told the victim he had evidence on his phone that could place the victim behind bars and the only way for the victim to “walk away free” was to call a relative to let them know he had been caught.

The victim asked to see the evidence but Benson never presented any evidence, the document states.

When the victim once again told Benson he had the wrong person, Benson responded that he has “never caught the wrong pedophile,” the document states.

Benson then reached into center console and armed himself with pepper spray, the document states.

“For another ten minutes, Benson continued to restrict the victim’s movement by directing the victim to ‘step out of the vehicle,’ ‘come over here,’ ‘stay at the end of my vehicle’ and later by directing the victim to another spot underneath the bridge,” the document alleges.

Benson told the victim that the fastest and easiest way to end this was for the victim to call his mother, which the victim did. Benson then directed the victim to put his mother on speakerphone and to let Benson speak to her.

Benson then introduced himself as the executive director of his group and told the victim’s mother that he had “concrete proof” that her son had been caught texting minors, the document states.

According to the affidavit, Benson advised the mother he would not call police if the victim sought counseling, but warned her that he needed proof within seven days that the victim was “getting help.”

Benson warned that “since the victim had deleted chat messages,” Benson would have to request a search warrant for the victim’s phone with the Waco Police Department, the detective wrote in the warrant.

After speaking with the victim’s mother, Benson directed the victim to get back inside Benson’s vehicle and then drove the victim to the location where he was picked up, the affidavit alleges.

The next day, the victim met with detectives to report what happened to him the previous night. The victim told the detective he created an online dating profile and started interacting with the profile of a “23-year-old white male” on a dating app.

The 23-year-old man provided a description of his vehicle and both men agreed to meet at a certain location. When the victim arrived at the location, he spotted the car described in his chat, but noticed a young Black man was driving, not the 23-year-old white man he had chatted with on the dating app.

According to the detective, the victim acknowledged that, at that moment, he realized he had been “catfished” by a fake persona but still decided to get in the car with the young Black male who turned out to be Benson.

Benson, the detective wrote in the arrest warrant, “is not affiliated with any law enforcement agency, and as such, Benson is not authorized to detain anyone.”

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