Vancouver man sentenced to 4 years in prison in domestic violence case

A Vancouver man was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for beating his then-girlfriend so severely that she suffered a brain injury.

Daniel K. Bentley, 62, pleaded guilty last month in Clark County Superior Court to a domestic violence charge of second-degree assault. Bentley was originally charged with first-degree assault, but the charge was amended as a part of a plea agreement, court records show.

Judge Suzan Clark followed the attorneys’ agreed-upon sentencing recommendation, in part, because Bentley has no prior assault convictions, she said Tuesday. However, she said she thinks Bentley was deserving of a longer sentence and called his behavior “despicable.”

Clark also said Bentley acted as if he’d done nothing wrong and that everything was the victim’s fault, which Clark called “classic domestic violence.”

A Vancouver patrol officer was dispatched on Jan. 8, 2019, to Amity Market, 2517 N.E. Andresen Road, for a report of a woman who had been beaten. Multiple officers responded and found the woman, who had visible facial swelling and a bloody, split bottom lip, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

The woman told officers her boyfriend, identified as Bentley, punched her in the face several times and struck her with a wooden board during an argument at his nearby residence, the affidavit says.

Hospital staff later determined the victim suffered a potentially life-threatening brain injury, court records state.

Neighbors said they heard arguing coming from Bentley’s home earlier that evening, according to court documents.