Thirty-eight-year-old Roger Bentley was sentenced to two consecutive life prison sentences today for the kidnapping and murder of ten-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids. Bentley’s attorney asked for a new trial at the beginning of the sentencing, but the motion was denied. Gage’s grandmother and mother gave victim impact statements to the court before the judge handed down the sentence.
Bentley was also ordered to pay 150-thousand dollars in wrongful death compensation to Gage’s mother and nine-thousand dollars to the state’s crime victim compensation fund to repay the costs from Gage’s funeral. Bentley, who had been a friend of Gage’s family, was convicted on January 31st of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. Gage was murdered after being sexually assaulted in Johnson County.