A former longtime North Dakota state senator is heading to prison for traveling to the Czech Republic about 14 times to have sex with underage male prostitutes, the Justice Department announced.

A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Raymon "Ray" Everett Holmberg Wednesday to 10 years in prison for the trips he took between 2011 and 2021, where he stayed at a Czech brothel to have sex with adolescent boys, the Justice Department said in a Thursday release. Prosecutors said Holmberg, who was still a senator at the time of the visits, used the alias Sean Evans.

A witness told law enforcement Holmberg didn't want his name on the brothel's registry because of his position as a prominent state politician.

Holmberg served as a Republican North Dakota state senator from 1977 to 2022, representing Grand Forks, according to the state's legislative council. At one point in his political career, he served in the legislature's top role as chairman of appropriations.

He retired in 2022, according to a statement from former Gov. Doug Burgum, who lauded Holmberg as "a true statesman of the legislature, with his eloquent floor speeches, his razor wit and his willingness to work together to solve our biggest challenges and seize our greatest opportunities."

Holmberg pleaded guilty in August 2024 to traveling to a foreign country for illicit sexual conduct. Federal law requires him to register as a sex offender.

"The boys and young men with whom Holmberg sought to engage in commercial sex were some of the most vulnerable in the world," prosecutors wrote in court papers, adding that Holmberg visited the Villa Mansland gay brothel. "Especially in Prague, they were homeless boys and men often recruited to work at the Villa by its owner because of their vulnerabilities."

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According to court papers, prosecutors said Holmberg persuaded other men to join him on his trips to Prague, using the Sean Evans alias. In some of the messages, Holmberg wrote to a person that the age of consent in Czech was 15 and that he was looking for "some young kid."

"In these communications, Holmberg shared an image of an adolescent boy that he called 'his twink,' and said that 'no one is ever to [sic] young . . . remember Prague,'" the DOJ said in the release. "He emailed a different friend a link to a brothel in Prague and suggested that they go that summer, writing: 'The boys rent at around $60 . . . (sex is extra).'"

Prosecutors said that Holmberg sent messages to other men where he boasted about having sex with children as young as 12 years old in his travels. He emailed one person, "What happens in Prague - Stays in Prague."

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One person recalled Holmberg telling them, “If you think I travel thousands of miles to have sex with a 16-year-old, you’d be right,” according to court papers. Holmberg brought a University of North Dakota student with him to Prague in 2016 and instructed the student to call him Sean Evans.

Law enforcement spoke to a Slovakian man who was familiar with Holmberg, who said the politician sent him sexually explicit photos of "adolescent-age boys as well as young adult males, including a young adult male from North Dakota."

His encounters with the minors either happened at or around the villa, which reviewers on travel website TripAdvisor have described as being Prague's "unique gay resort."

"It is impossible to know how many boys Holmberg victimized in Prague and elsewhere because law enforcement was not able to identify them, in part, because his visits spanned more than a decade and they were homeless runaways who often lived in poverty," prosecutors said in court papers. "But, make no mistake, this is not a victimless crime. There is no doubt that Holmberg’s exploitation of them has had devastating consequences for them, which are long-lasting."

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at knurse@USATODAY.com. Follow her on X @KrystalRNurse, and on BlueSky @krystalrnuse.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Former ND Sen. Raymon Holmberg sent to prison for exploiting children