To say that Regan Benson had an interesting year would be an understatement. To say that she was “winning” anything in her current state would be an overstatement. The Regan Benson story lies somewhere in between.
Benson started the year in a good place. She had steady partnerships with Christopher “Denver Metro Audits” Cordova (DMA) and Teresa “Sweet T” Neal (Sweet T), she had a budding friendship with auditor Aurora Transparency, and she had an army of 10-12 area auditors at her disposal.
Using the army to her advantage in the early part of the year, Benson orchestrated raids on city council meetings and town halls in the Denver area. The most famous of those raids, a mass gathering at the Sheridan, CO, city hall, saw Benson slink out of the reach of police as 10 auditors were arrested for violating Sheridan’s rules against recording in the building.
The arrest essentially shattered the army of auditors that Benson had worked so hard to assemble. As group members took plea deals or worked with authorities, they were cast out in spectacular fashion. Pushed by DMA, who refused to take a plea deal and had his own lawyer handle his charges, the split ended Benson’s plans to use her army to impact change in the Denver area.
Benson needed the army.
Alone, she’s just a very vocal woman with an extreme attitude. With 10 others, intensely backing her ideas, she can’t be dismissed. Simply put, with help, she could fill all the public speaking slots at a city council meeting, attack the city council in unison and attempt to force change – even if none of her “army” lived in the area.
After the incidents and arrests, Sheridan cracked down on internet-based speakers during the public commentary sessions during their city council meetings. Benson herself stopped attending the meetings when Sweet T and DMA were arrested for trespassing in late spring.
Around this time, Benson switched her focus to the city of Englewood, Colorado. The animosity towards the city started when Benson was refused the use of a employee only bathroom on the third floor of the Englewood Civic Center.
While having medical issues with kidney stones, Benson’s access to bathrooms has been an important issue to the YouTuber. However, the obsession with using the upstairs bathroom seemed to many viewers as a deliberate reoccurring theme simply because she was denied access and could not handle being told “no.”
Even when the bathrooms within the Englewood Civic Center were closed as they were being cleaned after prolonged exposure to methamphetamine over the summer of 2023, Benson pressed the issue during a meeting with city officials. The reoccurring obsession stood out during an otherwise productive meeting with city officials.
Benson would take every opportunity to revisit the Englewood Civic Center because of it. From picking fights and racially insulting security guards, to an over the top reaction when an exit from the building’s library was closed to the public, to her more recent “investigation” into a church renting space in the building, Benson appeared to have live streamed while she stomped, scowled and pretended to be in charge of the Civic Center more than she ever devoted to homeless outreach in the area.
In the most famous incident in the Civic Center of 2023, Benson ended up being charged with practicing law without a license after a confrontation with former Englewood City Prosecutor Ian Griffin. The charges stemmed from an incident in which Benson was present at a meeting between Griffin and a homeless woman named Shannon Moore.
Benson had provided a ride to Moore to the meeting and was present at the meeting and allegedly attempted to provide Moore with legal advice. This resulted in Griffin reporting Benson to the Colorado Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee. Those charges remain unresolved at press time.
Sgt. Bryan O’Neill of the Denver Police force became another target of Benson’s scorn in 2023. An incident with O’Neill in late Spring where Benson allegedly interfered with police tape sparked a warrant for her arrest that would later come back to haunt the YouTuber.
Benson was attempting to interfere in a work crew’s action to clear a city block of unregistered campers used by the homeless on the day of the incident. O’Neill was on scene along with other members of the Denver police. In an attempt to move Benson away from the scene, police put up crime scene tape, which Benson largely ignored, leading to the charges.
Later in the year, Benson made the decision to attempt to record in a Denver police precinct in violation of their rule against recording in the building. Benson was arrested by O’Neill in that incident, then again arrested by O’Neill weeks later for the outstanding warrant for the police tape incident when she attempted to record at a public meeting in the building.
The YouTuber has leveled accusations of harassment and stalking against O’Neill, even alleging that O’Neill had attempted to set her up to be arrested for smuggling contraband into the holding facility during her second arrest.
Benson’s problems with O’Neill prompted her to hold two poorly attended “mass protests” against the police sergeant, where she was joined by fellow activist Aurora Transparency and held up signs calling O’Neill a Nazi.
Forgotten in the chaos of the year was Benson’s very real work with the homeless in the Denver area. A strong advocate for those homeless that she was friends or friendly with, Benson’s abrasive behavior led to many confrontations with those she was trying to help.
Benson lost two associates this year in a man known as Jesse and a man named Steve “Cowboy” Olsen. Both were found dead after losing touch with Benson.
Jesse was a homeless man who Benson attempted to house a hotel in the Denver area. While briefly close enough for Jesse to assign Benson as his next of kin, the pair had a falling out after Jesse ignored the rules of the hotel and had an angry confrontation with hotel staff.
When Jesse was found dead in late spring, Benson served as Jesse’s legal next of kin. She inherited Jesse’s assets, had his body cremated, and commissioned a locket to be made containing portions of Jesse’s ashes that she wears around her neck.
Olsen was another homeless man with a long history with Benson best known for his cowboy hat and riding around Denver on his bicycle. Olsen was found dead in a hotel over the summer. As Olsen’s daughter could not get to the area, Benson and an associate cleaned Olsen’s hotel room leading to Benson’s on-going conspiracy theories about Olsen’s death.
Benson’s conspiracy theories led her to attempt to “audit” the Adams County, Colorado, Corner’s office in October. The YouTuber was so angry about interactions with the coroner’s office and being told that she couldn’t have a meeting with the coroner because the building was being renovated, that she drove to the building to inspect to see if the renovations were real.
The YouTuber arrived at the building, was denied access at the front door, then paraded around the outside of the building seeking where the construction was being held. Benson ended up confronting two construction workers, who explained that the work was real and that most of the building had been closed due to the construction.
Benson’s most controversial moment involving her activism came in November as she joined a group of protesters outside the Denver Coliseum during one of the first snowstorm events of the year. The presence of the activists forced the Coliseum to shut down its emergency homeless shelter hours early that day, forcing hundreds into the snow before dawn.
Within two weeks of that incident, Benson would announce that she was shutting down her homeless outreach programs in the Denver area. She claimed that Denver was unsafe and that police would not be able to protect her as she traveled alone through city streets after a man who had attacked her years ago was released from lockup.
Critics pounced on Benson as she continued to travel through the streets of Denver unimpeded after the announcement. Most recently she traveled alone to protest a gun trade in program in the city, attended a candlelight vigil to the homeless who had died in 2024, and to “inspect” the construction of a homeless micro community.
As 2023 ends, Benson is facing up-coming trials for her two arrests in Denver last year. She’s also still facing an investigation by Colorado Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee for the charges of practicing law without a license. Her homeless outreach program has been shuttered and she is spending an alarming amount of time creating YouTube short videos used to harass those she disagrees with.
Is Regan Benson a winner or a loser of 2023? It’s time to share your thoughts. Please tell us in the comments below or on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/h7VvqKYyHA).
