Former North Dakota senator pleads guilty to traveling abroad to sexually abuse a child – Brainerd Dispatch

FARGO – Former North Dakota Senator Ray Holmberg will plead guilty to a federal charge that he traveled to Europe to sexually abuse a child.

The agreement, filed Monday, June 24, says the Grand Forks Republican will admit in U.S. District Court in North Dakota that he traveled to Prague between June 24, 2011, and Nov. 1, 2016, with the intent to sexually abuse a minor. Holmberg, 79, signed the agreement on June 18.

Prague is located in the Czech Republic in Central Europe.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Dakota and Holmberg’s attorney, Mark Friese, have agreed to a sentence at the lower end of federal guidelines.

According to the guidelines, Holmberg could be sentenced to between 37 and 46 months in prison, but that could be extended or shortened depending on deviations or deviations, Friese said.

Holmberg must undergo a preliminary investigation that could help determine the appropriate sentence. This could take several weeks or months.

He has to register as a sex offender.

The agreement also provides for the dismissal of charges related to receiving or attempting to receive child sexual abuse material in the early 2010s.

On October 26, charges were filed against Holmberg. Details of the charges are scant in court documents.

According to federal prosecutors, he used aliases such as Sean Evan and Sean Evans to convince a child to send him sexually explicit images. He also used the Internet to organize his trip to Prague and to discuss his sexual adventures with others, prosecutors said.

The indictment did not specify the number of victims in this case, nor did it explain how many files containing child abuse material were involved.

Holmberg was arrested in October but not jailed. He was on probation while he was on trial. His trial, scheduled for September, was canceled.

At the time of publication, no hearing date had been scheduled.

Holmberg served in the North Dakota Senate from 1976 to 2022. At the time of his retirement, he was the state’s longest-serving senator in the United States.

He was also considered one of the most influential legislators. He served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget Affairs, the Senate Committee on Rules, and the Committee on Legislative Management.

Legislative Management assigns members to committees during regular sessions and determines which bills should be considered during special sessions and which investigations should be conducted between regular sessions.

Before that, he worked for Grand Forks Public Schools from 1967 to 2002, first as a teacher until 1980, according to a retirement letter he wrote to the school district. He then moved into special education to work with children in the school district and became a school counselor at Central High School in Grand Forks in 1984, the letter said.

Holmberg had planned to retire at the end of his term in 2022, but resigned early after reports surfaced that he was linked to 36-year-old Nicholas Morgan-Derosier of Grand Forks. The forum uncovered through a public records request that Holmberg and Morgan-Derosier exchanged dozens of text messages in August 2021 while Morgan-Derosier was incarcerated on suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material.

Morgan-Derosier was eventually charged in federal court. Prosecutors alleged he trafficked child pornography material and took children from the Twin Cities area to sexually abuse them. During Morgan-Derosier’s detention hearing on Jan. 4, 2022, prosecutors said a 77-year-old Grand Forks man asked or told Morgan-Derosier to “bring Morgan-Derosier’s 19 or 20-year-old friend to his home to give him a massage,” court records state.

In an interview with The Forum, Holmberg admitted that he contacted Morgan-Derosier about patio work and “different things.” He denied any messages mentioning a massage.

When asked what happened to the messages, Holmberg said: “They are just gone.”

Police reports, government records and other documents further confirmed Holmberg’s connection to Morgan-Derosier.

Federal and Grand Forks officials searched Holmberg’s home in mid-November 2021 and seized several electronic devices, according to a police report. According to court documents filed after his indictment, those items included a cellphone, an iPad and a laptop marked “Property of the Legislative Assembly.”

The North Dakota Legislative Council, which helps draft bills and conducts research for lawmakers, confirmed that a laptop loaned to Holmberg by the state was not returned when he retired on June 1, 2022.

Morgan-Derosier ultimately pleaded guilty to federal charges that he received, distributed and possessed child sexual abuse materials. He also admitted to sexually abusing several children beginning in his teens, although he was not convicted on those charges.

Morgan-Derosier knew some of these children, others he met online and arranged personal sexual abuse with them, according to prosecutors.

In May he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but he appealed the verdict.