In my own case dealing with the corrupt animal control/shelter director I’ve mentioned the fact he threatens people into silence by threatening to bring false charges against you. Luckily two men being charged by animal control along with others filed complaints on the judge their cases had to go before. She was found to have violated their rights as well as others rights in different types of cases. Below are a few articles with information as well as the courts detailed document.

“The state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a petition in December with the Supreme Court asking for Bennington’s supsension.

Bennington faced 13 disciplinary charges filed by the commission for her alleged abuse of power, alleged repeated violations of court rules and injudicious public conduct.

The Commission charged that Bennington abused her contempt power when she ordered a man jailed without sufficient due process. In the same case, the commission alleged Bennington failed to maintain the security of the man’s court file and that file is now lost.

That’s one of several alleged instances where the Commission claims the judge did not comply with procedures”

http://www.wthr.com/story/27608232/muncie-judge-faces-state-disciplinary-charges

Bennington jailed Muncie resident John Ewing without affording him sufficient due process, “abusing her contempt powers.”

Ewing, appearing before Bennington on a cruelty-to-an-animal charge, asked for a public defender but the judge denied his request, the state said. She later ordered him jailed without sentencing him to a specific time or indication of when he would be released.

She held a sentencing hearing in the Ewing case without having a prosecutor present.

The judge or her staff subsequently lost the court file on the Ewing case.

Bennington ordered Muncie resident Curtis Westbrook jailed for contempt “without affording (him) sufficient due process.”

Westbrook — who had circulated fliers criticizing the judge, referring her “One-Term Bennington” — was jailed for 10 days. While still incarcerated, he told The Star Press he intended to file a related complaint with state judicial officials.

The judge accepted a guilty plea from defendant Tory Gillenwater, but rejected a related plea agreement, and made “prejudicial statements.”

Gillenwater, who was facing a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to an animal, entered a guilty plea approved by a deputy prosecutor, but Bennington rejected the plea, calling it “not good enough punishment” and saying what Gillenwater had done was “atrocious.”

From 2012 through June 1, 2014, she did not require guilty pleas or sentencing hearings in misdemeanor cases to be recorded, a violation of state court rules.

She wrongfully imposed community service and the writing of a paper on Jonathan Proctor, after he was charged with illegal possession of tobacco, an infraction filed in 2012, when he was 15. The commission alleges she had no legal authority to impose those terms of his sentence. She is also accused of improperly issuing a warrant for the teen’s arrest, leading to his overnight stay in jail.

Bennington had the driving privileges suspended for defendants who failed to pay fines for illegal possession of tobacco, “with no statutory or legal authority to take such action,” the commission wrote.

http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2014/12/11/charges-muncie-judge-detailed/20273871/

Here is the courts more detailed document benningtonruling