(BISMARCK) — North Dakota’s Attorney General’s office is continuing their investigation into the now conviction in US District Court that former North Dakota legislator Ray Holmberg engaged in commercial sex with children in the Czech Republic.
In an interview Friday morning, Wrigley said the investigations are joint, as both federal and state investigators are taking part.
“Our BCI (Bureau of Criminal Investigation), that is under my office here in the Attorney General’s Office, has played a very central key role in those investigations,” he said. “Working hand-in-glove with Homeland Security, on the federal side, and some other entities.”
Wrigley said the prosecution was ‘always aimed for federal court,’ due to the nature of the conduct that was originally alleged in the indictment, but now has been acknowledged.
“Ray Holmberg is a felon convicted of traveling internationally with the intent of engaging in commercial sex with someone under the age of 18,” he said. “Children cannot consent. And that’s why we have these laws. That’s what the purpose that he’s acknowledged he was traveling for.”
Wrigley said a ‘much greater volume of information’ will come out at Holmberg’s sentencing, which has not been set.
“It’s troubling information,” he said. “I’m troubled that there are, in the wake of this, people that are out there looking for reasons to take the edge off things and act.”
Wrigley said he heard a legislator refer to the fact that engaging in commercial sex with someone under the age of 18 is legal in the Czech Republic.
“It’s not legal over there,” he said. “But there are countries around the globe that have grotesquely low ages of consent.”
When asked if any other lawmakers, or state employees, are being investigated in relation to the Holmberg case, Wrigley said he could not specify any targets or subjects of continuing investigative inquiry.
He did say that the investigation may provide opportunities where the state’s work could ‘provide sufficient evidence’ for federal or state prosecutors that there was obstruction of justice, giving false information to law enforcement or obstruction of the investigation, the state could act on more individuals being involved.
“You’re going to hear about it, because we’re going to moving forward on those matters,” Wrigley said.
Regarding reports that Wrigley’s predecessor, the late Wayne Stenehjem, knew about Holmberg’s activities in the Czech Republic, Wrigley said he could not address any specifics s to an investigation, except for pointing out the relationship between Stenehjem and Holmberg.
“He (Stenehjem) did not recuse himself despite his close personal and professional relationship with Ray Holmberg,” Wrigley said.
