A Nebraska man was sentenced to prison Tuesday for a 10-year-old sexual assault case in Iowa. Fifty-one-year-old Mark Sands, a registered sex offender from Omaha, was arrested last year after police said a federal DNA database identified him as the man who raped a woman from Council Bluffs in October 2001.
Sands was charged with first and second degree kidnapping, burglary, sexual abuse and three assault charges. Authorities said he broke into a Council Bluffs home and raped and beat a woman and tied up her 16-year-old disabled daughter.
Sands pleaded guilty to third-degree kidnapping and third-degree sexual assault before his trial was set to begin Tuesday. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.