A Portage man has been sentenced to 38 years in the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) after pleading guilty to a charge of arson-causing serious bodily injury, after Portage Police said that he set his mother’s bedroom on fire in May.

Brandon M. Bennett, 21, formerly of 2461 Woodward St., was sentenced on Tuesday by Porter Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Trista Hudson told the Chesterton Tribune today. Bennett was also sentenced to three additional years for a probation violation.

Bennett will be eligible for release after serving half of the 41-year sentence.

According to police, at 12:22 a.m. on May 1 officers were dispatched to Bennett’s residence in response to a report of a residential fire. On their arrival, police said, officers made contact with Bennett’s mother, Ginger Bennett, who was lying in the front yard after sustaining burns to her left foot.

Ginger Bennett advised police that she had been sleeping when a large fire in her bedroom awakened her shortly after midnight. She tried to exit the bedroom through the door but was forced instead to flee through a window, Ginger Bennett advised.

Investigators subsequently interviewed Brandon Bennett, who initially gave inconsistent reports of the incident. Brandon Bennett later admitted arguing with his mother, spray-painting a racial slur on the garage door after she had gone to bed, then throwing gasoline on his mother’s bedroom floor, and igniting it in an attempt to frighten her, police said.

Brandon Bennett further admitted trying to make the fire look like a hate crime, police said.

Ginger Bennett was transported to Porter Portage Hospital Campus and then to Loyola Hospital in Chicago for treatment of her burns.

Arson-causing serious bodily injury is a Class A felony punishable by a term of 20 to 50 years. Bennett pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the charge, Hudson said, and in exchange the state agreed not to seek an habitual-offender sentencing enhancement which could have added 30 years to Bennett’s total sentence.

Bennett has two prior felony convictions, the most recent in April 2008, when he pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and was sentenced to two years in DOC and three on probation. It was a violation of the terms of that period of probation which prompted Harper to sentence Bennett to three additional years, Hudson said.

DOC will determine where Bennett serves his time, Hudson said. He could be sent to a mental health facility under DOC jurisdiction, he could be sent to prison, or he could split his sentence between the two.

Hudson characterized Bennett as a very dangerous person. “He had made a statement to the effect that if his family were put at risk he would be capable of committing homicide,” she said. “So we were concerned that with this mental process he would be a danger to the community, which is why we argued for the aggravated sentence.”

Posted 10/14/2009