Attorney General’s office releases emails of late Attorney General Stenehjem

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFGO) – Late Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s emails that were first thought to be lost forever have been released by the Attorney General’s office through an open records request from KFGO News after they were recovered.

The 2,700-page document, released Wednesday, contains about 2,000 thousand emails from Stenehjem’s personal phone, but reveals little new information related to his death or the child pornography investigation of former Republican Senate Majority leader Ray Holmberg of Grand Forks.

The emails mostly contain routine exchanges between Stenehjem, his staff, and other state officials between December of 2021 and January of 2022. Stenehjem died on Jan. 28, 2022 after suffering cardiac arrest at his Bismarck home.

Stenehjem’s former deputy and his long-time administrative assistant deleted thousands of emails shortly after his death.

Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced the emails, reviewed by KFGO News, were recovered last month when new software made it possible to extract them. Wrigley says the phone was initially examined at the request of Stenehjem’s family who asked whether photographs that he had taken could be recovered prior to his funeral two years ago.

Stenehjem was close friends with the Holmberg, who resigned from the Legislature before he was charged in federal court with child sexual assault. Holmberg is accused of traveling to the Czech Republic numerous times through an educational exchange program through the North Dakota School Boards Association.

Holmberg’s trial in U.S. District Court had been scheduled to begin next month, but it’s been delayed until September.