Who’s Ray Holmberg? Depends on who you ask. If you’re a member of the North Dakota state legislature, then you’d probably know that he’s a GOP politicians and that state’s longest-serving state senator.
If you ask the police, however, then you’d find out that he’d been exchanging texts with a man just arrested on child porn charges. Oh, and the legislators probably know that too, as he just had to drop out of the committee (Legislative Management, which manages the legislature between sessions) he was chairman of because of the revelations about his poor choice of company.
And it wasn’t just the committee that he had to drop out of. He also announced that he’d be resigning his seat in the North Dakota Senate, with that resignation becoming effective on June 1st, a humiliating end to a 46-year career as a state senator.
Announcing the resignation due to disgraceful circumstances, Holmberg said:
“Recent news stories have become a distraction for the important work of the legislative assembly during its interim meetings. I want to do what I can, within my power, to lessen such distractions.”
Fox 9, describing the shocking nature of Holmberg’s communications with the man, the basis of those “recent news stories” to which he so tamely refers, reported that:
The Forum of Fargo reported April 15 that Holmberg exchanged 72 text messages in August with Nicholas James Morgan-Derosier.
Prosecutors allege Morgan-Derosier possessed several thousand images and videos depicting sexually abused children. He also is accused of taking two children under the age of 10 from Minnesota to his Grand Forks home, with the intent of sexually abusing them.
Holmberg first told the Forum that he had read a newspaper story about the charges, then in a later interview said he had not, the Forum reported.
What makes the whole situation even more shocking, as Newsweek reports, is that Derosier, the child porn suspect that Hohnberg was texting, was a landscaper.
What was Holmberg, a state senator, doing texting some random landscaper who doesn’t appear to have been a lobbyist or otherwise connected with state government? Apparently, they were texting about “patio work”, though Holmberg is now saying that he doesn’t have the messages.
Even worse, Derosier was already in prison on kiddie porn charges when Holberg was texting him! Newsweek, reporting on that, notes:
Inmates at the Grand Forks jail are allowed to use an approved text messaging service while detained. It is through this service that Morgan-Derosier allegedly contacted Holmberg.
So, some state senator was texting a random landscaper in prison for child porn charges while the guy was in prison, supposedly about a patio, though he now doesn’t have those messages.
At the very least it’s weird, though so far Holmberg hasn’t been charged with anything and some of his fellow state legislators have stood by him, though most seemed supportive of his decision to step down and resign.
Perhaps it was just a case of very poor judgment in whom Holberg was texting, as some of his allies indicated, though it would be helpful if the texts were available.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
Photo of Sen. Holmberg provided by NORTH DAKOTA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
This story syndicated with permission from Gen Z Conservative