An opinion released by the Iowa Supreme Court this morning affirms the decision of the district court that videotaped statements from Jetseta Gage, then 10, can not be used in a sexual abuse trial against the brother of her convicted murderer.
In its opinion, the court holds that James Bentley, a former resident of Vinton, has the constitutional right to confront witnesses. Gage was found dead in an abandoned Johnson County mobile home in late March 2005. James Bentley's brother, Roger Bentley, was later convicted in the girl's grizzly murder and is currently serving two life sentences in prison.
James Bentley was arrested in the fall of 2004 in the sexual assault of a then unidentified 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl. He was charged in November with felony sexual abuse over allegations that he assaulted the girl we now know to be Gage repeatedly over a two-year period in both Benton and Linn counties. At the time of Gage's kidnapping, rape and death, James Bentley was in the Linn County jail.
He had previously went to prison in 1993 for a Johnson County burglary and served nearly three years. In 1997, he was arrested in Linn County for third-degree sexual abuse and lascivious acts with a child, but was found not guilty on both charges.
Both of the Bentley brothers gained access to Jetseta Gage and her siblings when the mother, Trena Gage, became friends with James and, according to court documents requesting a paternity test, became intimately involved with him. Trena's friendship with Roger Gage continued after brother James had been accused of sexually molesting Jetseta and of sexual exploitation of both Jetseta and a much younger female sibling, Leonna. The sexual abuse to Jeseta, according to prosecutors, continued over an extended period of time.
Jetseta's videotapped interview was completed at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in November 2004, just days before James Bentley was arrested on the sexual abuse charges. The trial, however, was not set to begin until May 2005 -- two months after the girl was found dead.
In June, James Bentley was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Linda Reade to 100 years in federal prison for six counts of child pornography and sexual exploitation. The charges stemmed from the time when Bentley was allowed to be caretaker over Jetseta, then 9, and her then 13-month-old sister in his Cedar Rapids home. He was found guilty of taking pornographic pictures of the girls engaged in sexually explicit conduct. It is doubtful, according to Linn County Attorney Harold Denton, that Bentley will be released from prison since there is no parole in the federal system.
Although Jetseta had been murdered prior to that trial, two of Bentley's previous victims testified he had repeatedly sexually abused them. One of the victims, now 21-year-old, said she was abused at age 12. The second victim, a 15-year-old girl, testified that she was abused by Bentley when she was between the ages of 3 and 6.
The sexual assault case against Bentley will now come back to Linn and Benton counties for possible remand to trial.
"We will be once again looking over the evidence in the case," said Denton. "With that review of the remaining evidence, we'll decide where we will go from here."
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