Only about one-third of the emails of North Dakota’s late attorney general have been released by his successor — long-sought records mired in controversy and previously thought gone forever.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley released about 2,000 emails with redactions on Wednesday. Another 6,000 emails and untold text messages remain to be reviewed and released.
Wrigley’s office recently recovered the emails. They were preserved in a backup of Stenehjem’s personal cellphone, extracted soon after his death and found as investigators prepared for the trial of former state Sen. Ray Holmberg, a Republican.
Holmberg, 80, of Grand Forks, is 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 a federal indictment unsealed last fall. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for September.
The late Wayne Stenehjem’s emails were presumed lost forever, deleted at the direction of his executive assistant, Liz Brocker, days after Stenehjem died in January 2022.
The emails are being reviewed in conjunction with records requests, the Holmberg case and the cost overrun of a building project.
Picture: Stenehjem
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