Orange City, Iowa — The former teacher who taught at Sioux Center Christian School and was charged with 146 counts of child sex-related crimes has been sentenced to a 60-year prison term.
According to court documents, as part of a plea bargain, 37-year-old Curtis Van Dam pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse in the second degree, a class B felony; five counts of sexual abuse in the third degree, a class C felony; and one count of sexual abuse by a school employee, a class D felony.
In a separate federal case this past June, Van Dam was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison as part of a plea bargain and pled guilty to one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Child.
According to Sioux County Attorney Thomas Kunstle, Van Dam was sentenced on Friday to a 60-year prison term on the Sioux County charges, 17.5 years of which must be served as a mandatory minimum. Also, Kunstle says the sentence will be served consecutively with his federal sentence. So at the end of the 15-year federal sentence, Van Dam will begin to serve his sentence for the Sioux County crimes.
