BISMARCK — New court documents allege that former North Dakota State Sen. Ray Holmberg targeted the “most vulnerable” while committing his sex crimes against children.

According to federal court papers filed late Wednesday, March 19, officials detail that, for years, Holmberg targeted children in foreign countries, preyed on local students where he worked as a high school guidance counselor and abused his political power to exploit adolescent boys and men.

“You’d be amazed what you could do with a 12-year-old boy,” Holmberg allegedly told a former student of his.

Now 81, Holmberg spent over 46 years in the North Dakota Senate as a Republican who represented Grand Forks.

Holmberg resigned

as a lawmaker in 2022 after

The Forum reported his connection

to

another man

who faced and was eventually sentenced on federal charges that said he traded child sex abuse materials online.

Holmberg has

pleaded guilty

to a charge that said he traveled multiple times to Prague between June 24, 2011, and Nov. 1, 2016, “with the motivating purpose of engaging in commercial sex with adolescent age individuals,” according to a plea agreement. The charge carries a maximum punishment of 30 years in prison.

Holmberg is scheduled to appear at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 26, at the federal courthouse in Fargo for a sentencing hearing, according to a notice filed Friday, Feb. 7. Barring any changes in scheduling, North Dakota U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland will hand down Holmberg’s punishment that day.

“Holmberg has a long history of leveraging his power and influence as a North Dakota Legislator over young men to obtain sexual favors,” court documents filed Wednesday said.

Holmberg didn’t commit one criminal act, prosecutors allege, but persistently and pervasively sought out and targeted young boys for sex.

Beyond paying for sex with children abroad, Holmberg targeted boys and young men throughout the state and surrounding region, prosecutors allege, by grooming them or pressuring them into sex acts.

Holmberg groomed children at Grand Forks Central High School for years, court records state, and “leveraged his influence and power to obtain sexual favors” from students at the University of North Dakota.

Investigators found strings of emails from Holmberg under the alias “Sean Evan” in which he described going abroad to “look for some young kid” as “fun,” court papers said.

These correspondence contain sexual comments about children so graphic that The Forum has elected not to print them.

“If you think I travel thousands of miles to have sex with a 16-year-old, you’d be right,” Holmberg said, according to the report.

Once, he emailed a friend that he’d only come visit him abroad on the following conditions: “You have to guarantee that I will have a boy to have sex with when I am there,” court documents allege.

“The boys and young men with whom Holmberg sought to engage in commercial sex were some of the most vulnerable in the world,” the report said. “Especially in Prague, they were homeless boys and men.”

Holmberg’s crimes will have lifelong impacts on all his victims, according to the report.

Holmberg also targeted people closer to home. According to court documents, Holmberg routinely paid people in the Midwest to have sex with him.

He also tricked a 16-year-old Canadian boy to send him child sex abuse materials of himself. Holmberg pressured the boy for months to send him photos of his genitals, even asking him explicit questions about sexual acts. The child died by suicide years after the abuse, the report said.

The former senator also sent and received child sexual abuse materials over the years, court papers allege.

In Wednesday’s court papers, the United States attorney asked the judge to sentence Holmberg to 37 months, or just over three years, and lifetime supervision when his sentence is handed down next week.

Reporter working the night shift 👻. I cover Fargo city government, Cass County government and underserved populations in the area.