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James Bentley sentenced to 25 more years

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ANAMOSA (AP) - James Bentley has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing Jetseta Gage.

Bentley was found guilty on Aug. 1 of abusing the 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl, who was killed by Bentley's brother, Roger Bentley, three years ago. James Bentley was sentenced Thursday.

Bentley's sentence will be served consecutively with a 100-year-sentence on federal sexual exploitation and child pornography charges.

James Bentley's federal conviction stems from taking sexually explicit photos of Jetseta and a 1-year-old girl.

Roger Bentley, 41, is serving two consecutive life sentences for Jetseta's abduction and murder.

An additional second-degree sexual abuse charge filed in Linn County, where James Bentley is also alleged to have abused Jetseta, remains unresolved and is scheduled to go to trial in November.

Linn County Attorney Harold Denton said a delay for another venue change is likely.

James Bentley's case has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March, the Court turned down the Iowa attorney general's petition to review a state supreme court ruling barring a videotaped interview of Jetseta from being viewed by the jury in James Bentley's abuse trials.

The state court ruled that showing the video in which Jetseta details the alleged sexual abuse would violate James Bentley's right to confront his accuser.

In a Nov. 2004 interview at the St. Luke's Child Protection Center, Jetseta detailed allegations of sexual abuse by James Bentley over a three-year period in Vinton and Cedar Rapids.

James Bentley was arrested days after the interview and was in jail on March 24, 2005, when Roger Bentley kidnapped the girl from her home in Cedar Rapids and murdered her at an abandoned mobile home in rural Kalona. Her body was found the next morning.

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