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News / Clark County News

Man sentenced for Woodland kidnapping, assault

Five-plus years added to Clark County sentence

The Columbian
Published: March 20, 2014, 5:00pm

KELSO — A man has been sentenced, in a Woodland-area case in which a woman was taped naked to a chair and threatened with rape, under a plea deal that required him to testify against his accomplice.

Brandt Leroy Jensen, 41, was sentenced this week to more than five years in prison for second-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. He faced a maximum penalty of 10 years. He also was ordered to pay $3,513 in restitution and is forbidden to have any contact with the victim through 2024.

Jensen was initially charged in Cowlitz County Superior Court with first-degree attempted rape, first-degree kidnapping, indecent liberties by forcible compulsion, second-degree assault and felony harassment.

The victim, 43, testified that Jensen threatened her with a knife and gun Oct. 5, 2012, and ordered her to strip. She told jurors he then taped her naked to a chair and said she had to have sex with three men to pay off an alleged debt. She escaped and ran naked through the woods, broke into a house and hid.

One of the other men, Donald Howard McElfish, was convicted Monday after a four-day trial on charges of first-degree kidnapping, second-degree attempted rape and second degree assault with sexual motivation. He’ll be sentenced next month, facing up to life in prison.

Jensen’s charges were reduced after he agreed to plead guilty and testify at McElfish’s trial. He told the McElfish jury he didn’t remember details — blaming excessive drinking — but he established that he, the victim and McElfish were all in a bedroom at McElfish’s rural Woodland home on the date in question. The victim, who was jailed for one night last month to ensure she’d appear in court, also testified that both men assaulted her.

Jensen is already in prison, serving a 17-month sentence for an unrelated Clark County case. His 67-month Cowlitz County sentence will begin at the end of the Clark County time.


Barbara LaBoe covers courts and law enforcement for The (Longview) Daily News. Reach her at 360-577-2539 or blaboe@tdn.com.

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