Eatonville town planner arrested, accused of stealing money Eatonville s town planner has been arrested, accused of stealing money from the Orange County community. EATONVILLE, Fla. - Eatonville’s town planner has been arrested, accused of stealing money from the town. This all allegedly happened in 2017 when the town planner was in his previous role, in charge of Eatonville’s Community Redevelopment Agency. James Benderson is accused of using $850 of town funds without permission to start a cultural and heritage foundation. According to the criminal complaint, the foundation was used for his own personal gain. Benderson is also accused of erasing town data on his work computers and attaching a thumb drive to a town server that was connected to his personal iCloud, a violation of city policy. He has been charged with criminal mischief and grand theft.
Eatonville Town Planner James Benderson is accused of stealing funds by writing checks from the town s Community Redevelopment Agency for his non-profit organization and then trying to delete the information off the town computers and servers. Before Benderson worked as town planner, he worked for the town s redevelopment agency, and it s while he was in that role that police say he used public money to help himself. Henderson had been the CRA s director until 2019 when he was fired from the position. The agency then realized that two computers he s used could not be accessed. A criminal complaint alleges the information belonging to the town had been erased. Soon after, another Eatonville official allegedly found a hard drive belonging to Benderson, attached to the town hall network, which is against policy. An investigation was launched and a 2017 check for $850 taken from the agency s account to pay for setting up a non-profit called the Eatonville Cultural and Heritage Foundation was discovered. The foundation was controlled by Benderson. When he was fired from the CRA police said Benderson changed the foundation s address from the Town of Eatonville CRA address to his own address. State documents for the foundation say it is designed to expand opportunities through grantmaking for the town of Eatonville, but police said the contributions he received never went back into the town’s account while he was the CRA director.While he did pay back the $850, investigators say he deprived the town of unknown amounts of money. Benderson told WESH 2 News on Friday that he was not a liberty to speak about his arrest, but he did say there is more to the story than what police are alleging.