Ray Holmberg: Federal Conviction, Sentence, and Investigation

Ray Holmberg, the longest-serving state senator in North Dakota history, was sentenced in March 2025 to 10 years in federal prison for traveling to Prague to pay for sex with adolescent boys. The Republican from Grand Forks pleaded guilty to a single federal count in August 2024, ending a career of 45 years in the North Dakota Senate and opening an investigation that has since spread to the state’s university system, its political establishment, and the office of a deceased attorney general.

Who Ray Holmberg Was

Holmberg represented District 17 in Grand Forks from 1977 until his resignation on June 1, 2022. A retired school counselor, he built extraordinary institutional power over more than four decades. He chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee for nearly two decades, controlling budget decisions that reached into every state agency and university, and at various points led Legislative Management, the Senate Rules Committee, the interim Budget Section, and the Higher Education Committee.¹ Outside the statehouse he chaired the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

That authority, prosecutors would later argue, was not incidental to his conduct. It was the leverage.

The Federal Conviction

Holmberg was indicted on October 26, 2023, and pleaded guilty on August 8, 2024, in U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota to one count of traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct.² The charge carried a maximum penalty of 30 years.³

According to prosecutors, Holmberg traveled to Prague approximately 14 times between 2011 and 2021. He frequented a brothel called Villa Mansland, which catered to men seeking sex with adolescent boys, using the alias “Sean Evans” and avoiding the establishment’s registry to conceal his identity as a state legislator.³ He also procured sex from underage boys at a public park near Prague’s main train station.²

He also boasted about it. In one email he wrote, “Let’s go, this summer… The boys rent at around $60 (sex is extra).” To another contact he wrote, “No one is ever too young… remember Prague.”³ Prosecutors said he bragged about sexual activity with boys as young as 12.²

Exploitation Closer to Home

The government’s March 2025 sentencing memorandum described conduct that reached well beyond Prague. In 2012, Holmberg used the alias “Sean Evan” to pose as a teenage boy on an online forum for youths who had undergone circumcision, exchanging emails for months with a 16-year-old Canadian boy and soliciting explicit photographs. That conduct was not charged separately; the single federal count related specifically to the Prague travel.⁴

Prosecutors said Holmberg also exploited young men in North Dakota by leveraging his political position. He used access to the University of North Dakota president’s suite at hockey games, where attendees included the governor and members of Congress, to draw students with the promise of career-advancing introductions. One student told investigators that accepting Holmberg’s invitation carried an explicit expectation of sexual activity. Another former student said he maintained a relationship with Holmberg despite no sexual interest because he believed it would benefit his career.⁵ A Homeland Security agent described the suite’s guest list as a “who’s who of North Dakota.”⁶

How the Case Came to Light

Federal agents executed a search warrant at Holmberg’s Grand Forks home in November 2021 and seized his electronics.⁷ The public did not learn anything was wrong until April 2022, when the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported that Holmberg had exchanged 72 text messages in August 2021 with Nicholas James Morgan-Derosier, a Grand Forks County Jail inmate facing federal charges for possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material and transporting minors for sexual activity. Investigators had found more than 6,500 images and videos of child sexual abuse on Morgan-Derosier’s devices. At a detention hearing, a prosecutor cited the texts to illustrate Morgan-Derosier’s pattern of exploitation, noting that Holmberg had asked him to bring his boyfriend to the senator’s home “to give him a massage.”⁸

Holmberg told the Forum the texts concerned “a variety of things,” including landscaping work Morgan-Derosier had done for him, and said the messages were “just gone.” On April 25, 2022, he announced he would resign from the Senate effective June 1, saying he wanted to remove “distractions” from the Legislature.⁹

Pretrial Violations and Sentence

Holmberg was released on pretrial conditions four days after his October 2023 indictment and repeatedly violated them.¹⁰ Court records show he visited Romantix, an adult novelty store, without authorization on multiple occasions and received only verbal warnings. A June 4, 2024 search of his home found unapproved content on a smart TV. He tested positive for alcohol, used an unauthorized iPad, and repeatedly accessed the internet for unapproved purposes.¹¹ A pretrial services officer concluded he was “not a candidate for self-surrender.”

On March 26, 2025, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland sentenced Holmberg to 10 years in prison, well above the three-to-four-year range contemplated in the plea agreement. Judge Hovland rejected requests for leniency, describing Holmberg as a persistent threat to underage boys.¹² Defense attorney Mark Friese confirmed in April 2025 that Holmberg did not direct him to file an appeal. Holmberg, then 81, was being held at a jail in Elk River, Minnesota, awaiting Bureau of Prisons designation to a federal facility.¹³

The Stenehjem Connection

The most politically explosive thread runs through the office of the late North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who died in January 2022. Call logs and forensic data recovered from Stenehjem’s cellphone, reported by the North Dakota Monitor in April 2025, showed a pattern of contact with Holmberg during the federal investigation that Stenehjem had not disclosed to law enforcement.

On November 17, 2021, the day agents searched Holmberg’s home, Holmberg tried to reach Stenehjem repeatedly. Stenehjem received two calls from a phone identified in his contacts as “Holmberg Burner Phone” and rejected both. A voicemail from Holmberg said he was in “big trouble.” Stenehjem gave that voicemail to investigators.⁷

On December 1, 2021, the same day Homeland Security Investigations interviewed Stenehjem about the voicemail, call logs show five additional calls between the two men. More contact followed: a 43-second call on December 9, a voicemail on December 19, and an 11-minute conversation on January 10, 2022.¹⁴ Stenehjem had told investigators he spoke with Holmberg only once and that the search warrant never came up. When the Bureau of Criminal Investigation unlocked Stenehjem’s phone in February 2024 using forensic technology, investigators found that voicemails from Holmberg had been deleted, including one from the day of the search warrant.⁷ Stenehjem never recused himself from the Holmberg investigation.

Current Attorney General Drew Wrigley called the discrepancies “pretty troubling” and said, “Nobody can understand why anybody, let alone an attorney general, would delete evidence that has been collected in the furtherance of a criminal investigation.”⁷ Beth Stenehjem, the late attorney general’s wife, called the focus on her husband’s communications “baseless” and said there was no connection between Stenehjem and Holmberg’s criminal conduct.¹⁴

The connections may run back further. Handwritten notes from former Grand Forks County State’s Attorney David Jones, dated August 31, 2015, state: “A.G. office doesn’t want T.F. involved at all. (Wayne decision.)” Jones identified “T.F.” as a multi-jurisdictional task force that included the BCI. His file also contained a July 2015 note identifying Holmberg as a suspect in sexual assault allegations from the 1990s, along with a notation that the FBI was tracking his overseas travel. Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl reviewed the 2015 report but said she could not pursue it because she did not determine a federal offense had occurred. State officials said the matter was referred to South Dakota, but South Dakota’s Division of Criminal Investigation stated it has no record of such a request.¹⁵

Others Named in the Fallout

Previously sealed court documents and BCI reports released in early 2025 identified several people with North Dakota ties who had corresponded with Holmberg.

Bruce Gjovig, retired founder and CEO of UND’s Center for Innovation, appeared in investigation documents. Emails from 2009 and 2011 showed Holmberg sharing information about minors he had contacted in Prague. In one 2011 exchange sent to Gjovig’s university email address, Holmberg asked for Gjovig’s thoughts on “his twink.” Gjovig replied that the subject was “too young for me,” to which Holmberg responded: “No one is ever too young… remember Prague.”¹⁶ Gjovig’s attorney said his client never traveled to Prague, cooperated fully with investigators, and “was appalled by Mr. Holmberg’s alarming criminal conduct.”¹⁷ No charges have been filed against him. The Grand Forks Herald ended its professional relationship with Gjovig, UND began reviewing his affiliations, and the Grand Forks Chamber of Commerce scheduled discussions about his continued involvement.

Nick Hacker, a former state senator who later chaired the State Board of Higher Education, received an unsolicited 2016 email from Holmberg describing a sexual encounter with a male prostitute in Taipei. Hacker said he did not respond and reported the message to the BCI in 2022.¹⁸ Nathan Rees, a UND professor, was named in BCI documents for a 2016 email exchange that discussed Holmberg’s grooming of a student and a trip to Prague.¹⁹

Jim Poolman, a former state insurance commissioner and chair of the UND Alumni Association and Foundation board, resigned from those positions in April 2025 after a photograph of him with Holmberg circulated on social media. Poolman said he “knew nothing” about Holmberg’s crimes, had cooperated with a Homeland Security interview roughly 18 months earlier, and had not been contacted by law enforcement since. In his public statement, Poolman came out as gay and said he was being unfairly targeted because of his sexual orientation.²⁰

The North Dakota University System and State Board of Higher Education conducted an internal review of whether current employees had violated reporting policies. On May 29, 2025, the board said no current employees were found to have violated those policies but announced plans to hire a neutral third party to continue investigating.²¹ UND President Andrew Armacost said the university was reviewing records to ensure individuals connected to Holmberg’s criminal activity had “no connection to our university community.”¹⁸ A 2019 Energy Champion Award given to Holmberg was revoked.⁵

What the Investigation Is Still Doing

Wrigley has made clear that Holmberg’s sentencing did not close the matter. After the guilty plea he said his office would “continue to commit the full investigative resources of our BCI” to associated joint state-federal investigations.²² In May 2025 he told reporters that investigators are “hot on the trail of identifying” anonymous persons who communicated with Holmberg and are coordinating with overseas law enforcement.²³ The BCI is still processing tens of thousands of documents, and Wrigley said the public should expect further disclosures.¹⁹ Charging decisions on other individuals rest with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

1
North Dakota Legislative Branch. Ray Holmberg Biography
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Former North Dakota State Senator Sentenced to 10 Years’ Imprisonment for Traveling to Prague to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct
3
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Former North Dakota State Senator Pleads Guilty to Traveling to Prague for Commercial Sex
4
Valley News Live. Lawmaker Convicted of Child Sex Crime Had History of Exploiting Vulnerable Boys, Prosecutor Alleges
5
Inforum. Ray Holmberg Exploited Staff and High School, University Students for Decades, Court Docs Say
6
News from the States. Holmberg Sexually Exploited Others, Including People in North Dakota, Witnesses Say in Court
7
North Dakota Monitor. Call Logs Show Holmberg, Former AG Communicated Amid Federal Sex Crime Investigation
8
Inforum. North Dakota’s Longest-Serving State Senator Exchanged 72 Texts With Jailed Child Porn Suspect
9
Inforum. North Dakota Sen. Holmberg to Resign After Text Exchanges With Jailed Child Porn Suspect
10
North Dakota Monitor. Former Lawmaker Violated Conditions of Release in Child Sex Abuse Case, Records Show
11
Inforum. Report: Former North Dakota Sen. Ray Holmberg Violated Release Conditions Ahead of Plea Hearing
12
Courthouse News Service. Ex-North Dakota Lawmaker Gets 10 Years for Going to Europe With Intent to Pay for Sex With a Minor
13
News from the States. Former North Dakota Lawmaker Convicted of Sex Crime Not Filing Appeal
14
Bismarck Tribune. Call Logs Show Holmberg, Former AG Communicated Amid Federal Sex Crime Investigation
15
News from the States. Call Logs Show Holmberg, Former AG Communicated Amid Federal Sex Crime Investigation
16
Grand Forks Herald. Grand Forks Officials Respond to Report Detailing Emails Between Ray Holmberg, Grand Forks Civic Leader
17
Valley News Live. Attorney for Gjovig Speaks Out on Holmberg Report
18
North Dakota Monitor. Higher Ed Leaders to Conduct Review After Revelations in Holmberg Sex Case
19
KFGO. NDBCI Reports Detail Emails Ray Holmberg Sent
20
KVRR. Jim Poolman Resigns From UND Boards After Releasing Statement Distancing Himself From Ray Holmberg
21
News from the States. University System Finds No Holmberg-Related Policy Violations; Investigation to Continue
22
North Dakota Attorney General. Attorney General Wrigley Issues Statement on Ray Holmberg Plea
23
KFYR-TV. Attorney General Says More Suspects Are Being Scrutinized in Connection to Ray Holmberg Investigation