Ex-Lawmaker Who Went Abroad for Sex With Boys Gets 10 Years

UPDATE Mar 27, 2025 8:59 AM CDT

Ray Holmberg is headed to federal prison. The former North Dakota state senator has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct—specifically with underage boys, according to prosecutors. The North Dakota Monitor reports that the 81-year-old's sentence is longer than federal sentencing guidelines, as US District Judge Daniel Hovland felt the guideline sentence of three years was too little based on Holmberg's "egregious and despicable" crimes. Hovland said he felt such a relatively short sentence wouldn't deter others, per the AP. Prosecutors say Holmberg traveled to the Czech Republic more than a dozen times between 2011 and 2021, where he paid to have sexual interactions with adolescent boys.

Oct 31, 2023 9:04 AM CDT

A former longtime North Dakota lawmaker has been indicted on a federal charge alleging he traveled to Prague with the intent to rape a minor. The four-page indictment against former Republican state Sen. Ray Holmberg also charges him with one count of receiving images depicting child sexual abuse. The indictment was filed Thursday in federal court in North Dakota, per the AP. It accuses the 79-year-old Holmberg of traveling several times from North Dakota to the Czech Republic between about June 2011 and November 2016 with the intent to rape a person under the age of 18.

Holmberg served more than 45 years in the North Dakota Senate until his resignation last year, after local media outlet the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead revealed he exchanged text messages with a person who was jailed on charges related to child sexual abuse images. Holmberg, a retired school counselor, chaired the state's powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which writes budgets.

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He was reimbursed roughly $126,000 for nearly 70 out-of-state trips from 2013 to mid-April 2022 to places that included four dozen US cities, as well as China, Canada, Puerto Rico, and several European countries, according to an AP review of his travel records. Holmberg was released after pleading not guilty on Monday, per the Bismarck Tribune. His trial is set to start on Dec. 5. (More North Dakota stories.)