Posted on 03/26/2005 12:06:30 PM PST by Graybeard58
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - The man accused of snatching a 10-year-old girl from her Cedar Rapids home was arraigned today on one count of child stealing, police said.
Roger P. Bentley, a registered sex offender from Brandon, was taken into custody Friday in Johnson County in connection with the abduction Thursday of Jetseta Marrie Gage, whose disappearance set off a statewide Amber Alert.
Investigators discovered the body of a young girl Friday at an abandoned mobile home in a rural area near the small town of Kalona, about 45 miles south of the girl's home. But police are waiting on autopsy results to confirm if the body is that of the missing girl.
A disheveled Bentley, 37, appeared in Linn County District Court Saturday via teleconference. Bail was set at $1 million, according to jail officials.
Authorities have declined to release many details of their investigation, which turned Friday when they received a call from a person who reported seeing a pickup matching the description of Bentley's parked outside the mobile home.
Bentley was taken into custody and the body was found later that day, prompting officials to cancel the Amber Alert.
Described by the missing girl's mother, Trena Gage, as a friend of the family, Bentley was at the home Thursday afternoon working on the transmission of the family's mini van. Police say Trena Gage's seven-year-old son saw his sister get in the truck with Bentley, minutes after the children's grandmother, Teresa Gage, told them it was about time to go to bed.
"I told the (children) that they had 30 minutes to play" before bedtime, Teresa Gage told The Gazette. She said she thought Bentley left the house about 8:15 p.m. "and when he left, I locked the door and went downstairs to check on Jetseta. I couldn't find her."
The family has been unable to locate Jetseta's father, Chris Kolvar.
Trena Gage said she met Bentley about five years ago through his brother, James Bentley, whom Gage once dated for about a year.
James Bentley, 33, is also being held in the Linn County Jail where he is awaiting a May 31 trial on second-degree sexual abuse charges, alleging he assaulted a girl repeatedly over a two-year period in Benton and Linn counties.
According to the state Sex Offender Registry, Roger Bentley was convicted in 1994 of lascivious acts with a seven-year-old child. He was sentenced to five years in prison and served two.
There are no words to describe this.
I'm beginning to think there is no hope for this country.
God will not bless a country that shames Him like we are doing.
But Tom Vilsack got his "meth preventing" over-the-counter cold medicine law passed, and the state 'rats are going after "assault weapons," so Iowa is really a lot safer than this tragedy would indicate. More laws and less time served has always been a dynamite combination.
And yes, that was sarcasm right from the heart.
X, a registered sex offender from X, was taken into custody X.
I can't even begin to explain how completely out of patience I'm becoming from seeing this same sentence over and over and over and over, year after year.
When will these mothers stop dating sex offenders and bringing them home to their children???
He introduced a single woman with children to a convicted pedophile? Did he bother to mention this little factoid? This is beyond disgusting.
Word of caution about the sex offender list for any state - it's hardly worth the bytes used to download it. Most LE agencies are very negligent about posting those who even bother registering. Who knows how many don't register. And then remember, these are only the "known" offenders. At one time we had 3 in the neighborhood that we all knew of and not one was on the state list, but it's the ones not on the list that's the most frightening.
Just put two behind his right ear and be done with it.
Then make that the immediate pushishment for all of these disgusting rabid animals in human form.
Child molesters cannot be "cured" through "therapy" or "chemical castration". As long as they breathe, children are endangered. They just need to be put down. Immediately!
Jack.
How sadly predictable. Three years of his five year sentence off for good behaviour -- he didn't diddle any kids in prison. What a prince.
Sexual abuse of a child is a non-curable disorder. Those convicted in a case where physical evidence exists should be put down. (You need physical evidence, to prevent the Janet Reno/Scott Harshbarger fabricated-case mills).
I'd like to hear the excuse of the criminal of a judge who gave this monster such a ridiculous sentence. You get longer for 2nd offense DUI in many states.
EVERY CHILD MOLESTER IS A MURDERER IN DEVELOPMENT. They need killing.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
"Sexual abuse of a child is a non-curable disorder. Those convicted in a case where physical evidence exists should be put down. (You need physical evidence, to prevent the Janet Reno/Scott Harshbarger fabricated-case mills)."
Wasn't it Tom Reilly who prosecuted the Amerault case (if that's the one you were referring to?
The way to correct this kind of judicial insanity is to put the "early release" judge in jail.
That would work. I could do the putting down, in fact, and sleep like a baby every night. I have an absolutely negative attitude about these mangy bastards.
One of the cases. In the 1980s there were several "implanted memory" cases where nutball prosecutors basically browbeat kids into testifying against adult day-care providers. The most famous cases were one against a guy named Baran in western Mass, the McMartin Preschool case in California (this is the one with secret basements and evil clowns, none of which actually existed), and about three cases presided over by Janet Reno.
WHen Scott Harshbarger saw how much these cases helped reno's political career, he started looking for a similar case and wound up with the Amirault family. He used a nurse who would physically fondle and touch the kids and ask them, "isn't this what so-and-so would do?" The only one who actually abused any kids was Harshbarger's nurse.
It worked, from his point of view: he got elected Attorney General (an elective post in Massachusetts) and might have become governor if his misconduct in the Fells Acres day care case had not been brought to light (thanks to a coalition of left and right wing lawyers and papers, and especially to articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal). Harshbarger was narrowly defeated for the governorship, and his gross misconduct as Middlesex County DA was certainly a reason.
Where Tom Reilly came in -- Reilly was Harshbarger's successor as both Middlesex DA, and liberal Democrat candidate for AG (his present job) and Governor (his next desire). He covered Harshbarger through the rounds of appeals. Martha Coakley was Reilly's successor as Middlesex DA and continued the appeals. One of the Amiraults is dead, one on parole which required her to drop all legal attempts to clear herself (Coakley, Reilly and Harshbarger thought they were a threat to their respective political ambitions), and one is still in jail.
And there was never any credible evidence against them, and Scott Harshbarger knew that, and he arranged for evidence to be fabricated for this Soviet style show trial.
After being beaten for the Governorship, Harshbarger was given a non-heavy-lifting job as president of the liberal pressure group Common Cause. His plan was to emerge when the heat was off and a Senate seat was open. He is getting a bit long in the tooth now and would have to fight off younger rivals like Reilly (who, of course, has the dirt on him, having CYA'd him on this).
This sounds pretty unbelievable, but go find Rabinowitz's articles. It can't happen in America, but America stops where the People's Republic of Chappaquiddick begins.
The ultimate irony: the Amiraults were liberal Democrats. But sometimes the Party needs a sacrifice!
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Scotty was and is liberal scum of the highest order. He would have fit in great as a communist idealist during Stalin
I just did a little looking around the net and I found this article by the estimable Rabinowitz indicating that the last Amirault was released in 2004.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005141
Like his sister, he apparently cannot speak or try to clear his name while his parole continues. Rabinowitz promises he'll speak "at the right time."
He was 18 years in prison, but if he had accepted "treatment" as a sex offender, he'd have been right back out again.
This case is also why Harshbarger did not get picked up for anything by the Clinton administration. He's radioactive.
So anyway, these two cases show the limits of it. This murderer about whom the thread started shows that we shouldn't let these people out lightly, and Fells Acres (and many other 1980s witch-hunt cases) show that we oughtn't put them in lightly either.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Thanks, Criminal Number 18F, for the background!
Whenever a case like this comes out, I began formulating a plan - a movement - to have neighborhoods buy housing for sexual predators ... right next to the offending judge's family.
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