William Benning Publicly Apologizes To Jennifer Welsh

Los Santos, San Andreas – Multiple casualties were reported as a result of William Benning’s stabbing during his bar license reinstatement back on October 14th, including Lieutenant Governor Adrian Jax, who was shot by a SASS agent who fired in the direction of the crowd, aiming for Welsh. Everyone involved has since recovered and those responsible for any injuries have either been disciplined or dismissed. 

Hudson Welsh was arrested and pleaded guilty to his charges. He has since been given time and has long been released.

Despite the stabbing, William Benning has had his bar license reinstated under specific conditions:

1. He will begin with fourteen bar strikes. To receive a bar strike you typically have to violate the SABA Code of Ethics. Twenty is known to be the most that you can receive for termination, but that does not mean someone can’t lose their bar license beforehand.
2. He will be on sixty days of probation.

A day following the incident, Hudson Welsh, Detective Jennifer Welsh, and William Benning got together and expressed their regrets about the issues between them. The meet-up was recorded, and provided to Weazel News to provide further context on the situation, and to conclude a public dispute between the public figures.

In place of submitting a written statement to Weazel News, William Benning requested to meet with us to discuss the recording. He expressed his guilt about his behavior earlier in the year, as well as a desire to improve his behavior.

This move for a change he says began when he and Mr. Welsh spoke to each other while both recovering in the hospital following the incident. 

“After the stabbing in the courtroom during my hearing, Hudson and I were both at the hospital together and we were talking back and forth. It was determined that I received false information during my investigation and confrontation with Mutiny, the terrorist group. One of my sources has its agenda, in that Jennifer Welsh was implicated as being part of the conspiracy. It turns out that she wasn’t.”

William Benning

William Benning is known to have led a proclaimed intelligence service during the Mutiny terrorist attacks referred to as “The Army of the North.” Benning kept the identities of the group’s members private, and they were  known for not having a good reputation with the public. They were often referred to as a militia. The organization was supposedly told to have ignored those who were critical of their actions, and were often confrontational with those who opposed them.

Benning’s “Declaration of War Against Mutiny” to the government’s public forums on behalf of the Army of the North worsened their reputation with the public. Mutiny later responded, and the group became associated with vigilantism. Further incidents would occur due to this public statement, including an attempted assassination of Benning himself.

According to Benning, they were meant to gather information regarding various events and people within Los Santos and relay this information to necessary institutions. However, whether or not they were successful in doing so is up for debate.

Nonetheless, Benning asserts that he feels remorse for those affected by his actions during that time period.

“It took a long time, but Jennifer Welsh received the apology she deserved. Something like that could ruin a person’s career. Erroneous things have been said about me, and I’m no longer a State Rep after a short time. I told her I received erroneous information, I apologized to Jennifer Welsh, and she accepted the apology and we hugged it out.”

William Benning

William Benning was impeached from his position as a State Representative last year on December 5th, 2021. The Courts of San Andreas found him guilty of corruption, bribery, criminal threat, and disturbing the peace. He would later be disbarred due to these charges.

When questioned on who he believed fed disinformation to him during Mutiny, he told Weazel that he had someone in mind.

“He’s no longer around, he flew out of the city and he’s never been seen since. I can understand because he’s also a person who testified against me at my impeachment trial, stating that we did cocaine together. I don’t even drink in the city, let alone take illicit drugs. It added fuel to the fire of my appeal and I was impeached. Bad charges, the impeachment was another event that occurred prior to that, which was never really addressed in the city.”

William Benning

Toward the end of the interview, he also expressed guilt for berating former Governor Karmen McKenzie. He claims that there were times where he believes people neglected to properly advise her on Mutiny’s actions.

“I want to put it out there that regarding Karmen Mckenzie, I said some public things about her at a town hall. She actually was not briefed about what was going on with Mutiny, therefore she couldn’t make any decisions about them. That has to do with some other factors that went on within the city, there are people in the city that wanna see her fail. She was advised, when I had spoken to the DOJ about Mutiny and when I requested a meeting with the governor to debrief her, the information never got to her and she was told specifically not to talk to me. We didn’t know information was purposely being withheld from her.”

William Benning

The cyberterrorist attacks of Mutiny caused plenty of confusion between the public and government officials. It’s been debated on whether or not more could have been done against the extremists, but ultimately disinformation and a lack of communication led plenty of people to grow bitter with the public officials and created a rise in vigilantism. 

William Benning has since recovered from being stabbed and returned to his daily life.