St. Joseph Circuit Court records show Stephanie Ball has not paid one cent toward her $5,785.05 judgment in 31 months. On Nov. 3, she asks voters to make her clerk of that court.
Midland Credit Management sued Ball in January 2024 over an unpaid credit card account. The court found she had been served. Ball never answered the lawsuit. On March 20, 2024, Magistrate William L. Wilson entered a default judgment for $5,628.05 plus court costs, with 8 percent interest.
When I checked MyCase on Thursday, the balance stood at $5,785.05, which includes $157 in costs but not interest. The payment and credit columns both read $0.00.
Ball’s campaign leans on her experience with exactly this kind of case. Her website calls her a Certified Credit Counselor and describes years at the South Bend Heritage Foundation helping homeowners in foreclosure file with the courts. She writes of neighbors “one bad day away from small claims court or an eviction or foreclosure notice.” In her own collection case, Ball filed nothing.
The state took Ball’s unpaid income taxes to the county clerk in back-to-back years. The Indiana Department of Revenue filed the first warrant, for $147.70 in 2021 taxes, in June 2022 and released it that September. The second, for $310.01 in 2022 taxes, was filed in September 2023 and stayed open for nearly 20 months. Ball still owed the state when Midland sued her and when the court entered judgment against her. The second warrant was released in May 2025.
The circuit court clerk keeps the county’s court records, handles the money that moves through the courts, and runs the county’s elections, as I reported in July. The Midland judgment against Ball sits in that office’s files. Any voter can read the case on MyCase under 71C01-2401-CC-000258.
I called Ball on Thursday morning and left a message asking whether she had made any payments on the judgment or planned to before the election. She did not call back. She did not return my call for the October story on her tax warrants, either.
Logan Foster
Logan Foster is the founder and editor of Redress South Bend, an independent news outlet covering local government, courts, and public institutions in South Bend and St. Joseph County, Indiana. He reports from primary documents: public records requests, court filings, state audit reports, and campaign finance disclosures. His reporting has examined city and school district payments made without competitive bidding, school board spending, and the records of candidates in county races. Redress South Bend obtained the South Bend Police Department's ShotSpotter coverage map after the department initially denied public access. The outlet is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Online News Association. Reach him at info@redresssouthbend.com
