Former Republican state lawmaker to plead guilty to traveling overseas to pay minor for sex.

Former Republican state lawmaker to plead guilty to traveling overseas to pay minor for sex.

A former North Dakota lawmaker has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on a charge that he traveled overseas to pay for sex with a minor.

Ray Holmberg,80 was arrested last year in Grand Forks, N.D and charged with traveling to Europe with the intent of paying for sex with a minor and with receiving images depicting child sexual abuse, according to the Associated Press

Holmberg accepted a plea deal last week in which he will plead guilty to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual activity and register as a sex offender. In exchange, prosecutors will dismiss his other charge of receipt and attempted receipt of child sexual abuse material.

Prosecutors are also likely to recommend a lighter prison sentence than the maximum 30 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and lifetime supervised release, after Holmberg pled guilty.

Prosecutors say that between June 2011 and November 2016, Holmberg repeatedly traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic for the purpose of paying for sex with a minor. He also received and attempted to receive images that depict child sexual abuse from November 2012 to March 2013.

He allegedly used aliases to convince a child to send him sexually explicit images. The indictment listed two of his aliases as Sean Evan and Sean Evans.

Holmberg served in the North Dakota senate for more than four decades and chaired the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee before he retired in 2022 following a report that he exchanged text messages with a man jailed on child porn charges.