When Justice Isn’t Blind
When we are young, innocent, and sometimes foolish, we really believe that justice will prevail, that nobody is above the law, that justice is blind, and that the court, be it judge or jury, will provide justice. We like to think that justice will be served, that the innocent will be found not guilty and set free, and that the guilty will be punished appropriately. As we get older and see more of the world, we learn that there’s a big difference between ethically correct, morally correct, and legal.
I recently listened to a Joel Heitkamp interview with acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Puhl and North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley. The conversation began with the distance between what Jennifer Puhl requested in sentencing guidelines, and what Judge Hovland sentenced. Naturally, Ms. Puhl was rather obtuse about commenting on the sentencing discrepancy. Mr. Holmberg was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but Ms. Puhl had asked for only 37 months.
When you consider the number of years, the number of accusations, the internet and phone use, the number and age of the victims, the fraud and the theft of North Dakota funds for decades, the sentence for Holmberg seems extraordinarily light. The number of people who knew about and participated in his activities goes back 35 years. Ten years in Federal prison seems very light. Mr. Holmberg is 81 years old and may be in poor health. The 10-year sentence in Federal prison is probably similar to life in prison, which would be a more appropriate sentence.
The sentence by U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland characterized Holmberg’s conduct as "egregious and despicable" and said he didn’t think the guideline sentence of 37 months was adequate. In the Heitkamp interview, Judge Hovland did go out on a limb because according to the sentencing guidelines with which he was presented, the sentence was not commensurate with the crimes. If I understand correctly, Judge Hovland's sentence of 10 years could be overturned because of the disparity between the 37-month sentencing guidelines and the 10-year sentence given Judge Hovland.
Who is Ray Holmberg? For 45 years he was a North Dakota state senator from Grand Forks. Eventually he became head of appropriations. He was also a school counselor.
The real issue here is not the discrepancy between the sentencing guidelines and the actual sentence, but rather why the sentencing guidelines were so mild. In Heitkamp's interview I listened to the acting U.S. Attorney, Jennifer Puhl, talk about the difficulty she had coming to sentencing guidelines. She said that going to Prague to find boys who had engaged in sexual activity with Mr. Holmberg was impractical. She said, the only charge she could make stick was the intent to travel charge.
Of course, there is much more to this than intent to travel, because Holmberg actually did travel, and he actually did have sex in Prague. I suspect dozens of boys were involved. The prosecutors could have found someone who would talk. Two men at the hearing actually discussed sexual abuse as far back as the 90s. There were several investigations, but they went nowhere.
These investigations included then North Dakota States Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, the Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). That’s a lot of horsepower, and you would think that between all of those groups they could actually have ferreted out fact from fiction. As you would expect in a situation such as this, many of these files have mysteriously disappeared.
There’s also talk about statues of limitation, but sexual abuse of minors is a felony which has no statute of limitations, similar to murder, terrorism, or treason. So, this investigation could easily have gone back to the high school student from the 90s. This young man from the 90s and another young man from the early 2000s and another from around 2015 were all victims of sexual abuse. My issue then is why didn’t Ms Puhl include those testimonies in her sentencing guidelines? My understanding is that each of those charges would have been good for ten years.
Then, there is a rather glaring problem about fraud. Exactly how much did the state of North Dakota pay to send Ray Holmberg to Prague to have sex with children? There was no discussion about that total cost or restitution of that cost. This is criminal fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and obstruction. There are many sentencing guidelines here. There is also the problem that somebody actually signed the checks that paid for those trips. Certainly, restitution would be reasonable for sentencing as would sentencing guidelines for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Recently, in a substack article, I discussed the doctor who took out the liver of a patient instead of the spleen. Making a spectacle of that doctor solves no problem whatsoever. The problems with that institution were much greater than one doctor. A mistake like that does not happen without someone knowing about it. There were many people in the team around this doctor who should have noticed the problems and stopped them long before the liver was removed, killing the patient. There were nurses who should have noticed, and doctors who should have noticed.
Punishing the doctor for removing the liver serves two purposes. First, it gives the appearance that the people in this hospital cared. The second is giving the appearance that the problem has been resolved. Of course, neither of these things are true. The reason that this behavior was allowed to exist for so long has not been resolved. We have seen the tip of the iceberg but haven’t the slightest idea of what lies underneath.
The same is true for Mr. Holmberg. The case against Holmberg just appears to be a solution. It also sends the wrong message to the public and the others involved with Mr. Holmberg. This message tells us several things that we would rather not hear. For example, if you want to have the state pay for your trips to Prague to have sex with young boys, then you should be a North Dakota Senator. If you want to have charges and investigations buried, you should be on a first name basis with Attorney Generals. After all, Ray Holmberg and Wayne Stenehjem knew each other for 45 years when they were freshman senators from Grand Forks.
And sadly, after several decades, charges are still being buried. And we still have discriminatory “justice.” Justice, promoted as being blind, is not blind. Judges or AGs can bias a jury before a trial or hearing gets started by deciding what information can and cannot be shown to the jury. In the case of Mr. Holman the problem is the exclusion of evidence. One needs to ask why.
Oftentimes prosecuting attorneys are more interested in winning a case than they are in pursuing justice. In the Holmberg case, large amounts of evidence was excluded from the sentencing guidelines. The question is why. At least Judge Hovland seemed to understand what was missing in these sentencing guidelines. Kudos to Judge Hovland.
The North Dakota Monitor reported on some of the discrepancies between Holmberg's sentence and that of other sexual offenders:
“Investigators said the graduate student who accused Holmberg of inappropriate sex, attended UND hockey games in the university president’s suite, with Holmberg making introductions to influential North Dakotans, but with the understanding that it would lead to sex….Then consider special agent Dan Casetta with the Department of Homeland Security who called people with access to the UND president’s suite, a ‘who’s who of North Dakota’ that would at times include the governor and other members of Congress.”
Prosecutors allege that Holmberg traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic 14 times between 2011 and 2021 to pay for sex with young boys. He has incriminated himself in digital media, which is a huge mistake because that is the least private way to communicate.
It is my understanding that Mr. Holmberg was discovered because of his link to Mr. Nicholas Morgan-Derosier, a Grand Forks man who was sentenced to 40 years on child pornography charges. The connection between Holmberg and Mr. Morgan-Derosier was discovered when investigators examined Morgan-Derosier’s personal cell phone. It’s hard to imagine with the personal connection, the admitted videos and sexual activity, that Mr. Holmberg did not have child pornography on his personal cell phone and home computers as well.
Mr. Morgan-Derosier did a lot less than Mr. Holmberg and got a prison term of 40 years compared to Mr. Holmberg’s 10 years and the sentencing guidelines of 37 months. So, it appears as though Holmberg’s connections are still alive and well and have continued for many decades. Discrimination and selective prosecution create a huge difference between low hanging and high hanging fruit. We all know that low hanging fruit is easier to prosecute, giving prosecutors easy wins for their successful prosecution score card.
This appears to be a three or four-decade-long web of conspiracy and secrecy involving, according the defense and law enforcement, at least, four other men accused of sex crimes, who were not prosecuted. This is an odd statement about discrimination or selective prosecution for the defense to make, but I believe that defense attorney, Mr. Mark Friese, was simply trying to point out that this prosecution was very selective and very discriminatory for only Mr. Homberg.
As I’ve indicated above, what I find offensive about Holmberg's sentence is way out of proportion to what it should have been. Judge Hovland tried to remedy some of this with his 10-year sentence. For the time being, let’s look at the other extreme. Let’s look at sentencing guidelines which are way too much out of proportion and excessive.
Truly remarkable about the Holmberg case is not only the problem with the sentencing guidelines but also the fact that there were numerous opportunities presented to legal authorities to stop this and it wasn’t stopped until it was accidentally discovered 2 or 3 decades later. So, if we really had justice, all of the people along the way who have obstructed justice would be charged, and people actively involved in this ring of sexual exploitation would be incarcerated. The present situation leaves many more questions unanswered than answered. We wonder who else was involved. We wonder what kind of damage was done and we wonder whether any of it is going to stop. It seems that having friends in high places has many perks...many more perks than for us mere mortals.
Joel Heitkamp believes the public needs to know the others involved with Holmberg. And has raised the issue of how the North Dakota Legislature can gain back the confidence of its constituents. Good question.
On May 8, 2025, the North Dakota Ethics Commission announced the beginning of the rulemaking process for legislative travel. Too little too late?