Wichita man pleads guilty to animal cruelty after Benji the dog was found dead

A 19-year-old Wichita man has pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and other charges after Benji the dog died last winter.

Cole Ford Carter pleaded guilty last week to all three charges filed against him in Sedgwick County District Court.

A criminal complaint filed Dec. 5 charged Carter with felony criminal threat, felony cruelty to animals and misdemeanor criminal carrying of a weapon. Prosecutors alleged Carter “threatened to whip the neighbor’s (expletive),” hurt or killed a dog and was concealed-carrying a Glock .40 caliber handgun as a person under the age of 21.

The dog was identified in court documents as Benji, a mix of a Bichon-Frise and a Maltese.

Police previously said that Carter was arrested after a small, white dog was found dead Dec. 2.

Wichita Police Department spokesman Officer Charley Davidson said at the time that police originally responded to a suspicious character report at around 7:30 a.m. that Sunday in the 3300 block of North Wild Rose, near 29th and Ridge in the northwest part of the city. The caller had said someone slammed the dog into the ground.

The home address listed for Ford in jail records is in the same block as where the animal abuse case happened.

Carter has been held in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of a $200,000 bond since a Sept. 4 arrest for failure to comply, booking records show. That arrest came the same day a judge revoked his previous bond, after Carter was accused of allowing the battery of his electronic monitoring bracelet to die at least six times in the previous month.

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 4.

This story was originally published September 30, 2019 at 7:55 PM.