Ex-North Dakota lawmaker gets 10 years for going to Europe with intent to pay for sex with a minor

A once-powerful former North Dakota lawmaker was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for traveling to Europe with the intent to pay for sex with a minor.

Former state senator Ray Holmberg’s attorney, Mark Friese, confirmed the sentence to The Associated Press but declined to comment after the hearing, which KFGO radio reported included seven hours of testimony, victim statements and an apology from the shackled 81-year-old.

Holmberg pleaded guilty last year in U.S. District Court in Fargo, North Dakota, to one count of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual activity.

KFGO reported that during Wednesday’s hearing, the defense and prosecution agreed that Holmberg should serve about three years because of his age and poor health, but federal Judge Daniel Hovland said Holmberg is still a threat to underage boys. Hovland called Holmberg’s character ‘’egregious and despicable’’ and said that a 37-month sentence wouldn’t deter others.

While Holmberg denied actually having sex with anyone under 18, Hovland said he can ‘’read between the lines," the radio station reported.

Prosecutors said Holmberg traveled at least 14 times from 2011 to 2021 to Prague, Czech Republic, to pay for sex with adolescent-age boys. In court last year, Holmberg admitted to paying young male masseuses, some of whom he had sexual contact with at an alleged brothel. But he claimed not to know for certain how old they were.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl said the crime was ‘’an assault of the dignity of many young boys.‘’ And the majority and minority leaders in the North Dakota Legislature described Holmberg’s crimes as ‘’evil’’ in a statement that vowed additional resources to law enforcement to help combat increases in criminal sexual assaults and human trafficking, KFGO reported.

Holmberg served 45 years in the North Dakota Senate. He resigned in 2022 after The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported on his many text messages with a man in jail in connection with child sexual abuse material. Holmberg chaired two powerful legislative panels, including the Senate’s budget-writing committee.

Records previously obtained by The Associated Press show that Holmberg made dozens of trips throughout the U.S. and to other countries since 1999. Destinations included cities in more than 30 states as well as Canada, Puerto Rico and Norway. At least one of Holmberg’s trips to Prague was state-funded through a teacher exchange program, the Klemetsrud Puhl wrote in court filings last week.

‘‘Holmberg’s offending conduct over the course of decades ... can only be described as corruption,‘’ she wrote. ‘’That is, he used his position to serve his own ends.‘’

In one example the prosecutor described, Holmberg brought a University of North Dakota student to the university president’s suite for hockey games, representing ‘’a right to access some of the most influential people in the state’’ — including the UND president, governor and congressmembers — with the expectation of him engaging in sexual activity with Holmberg, she wrote.

In 2012 and 2013, Holmberg posed as a teenage boy in an online chatroom for teens who had undergone circumcision, and misled and manipulated a 16-year-old Canadian boy into sending him explicit photos, the filing said.

The full story of the relationship is unclear because the boy later took his own life in 2021, ‘’but no doubt Holmberg’s conduct contributed to his struggles,‘’ Klemetsrud Puhl said.

Former U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon said the acts described in the prosecutor’s filing paints a picture for the judge of Holmberg’s overall character.

‘‘What we see here is a defendant who has a decades-long track record of identifying extremely vulnerable young men, grooming them and eventually using them for sex,‘’ Purdon said.