FARGO — As a Grand Forks man was being investigated on construction fraud and federal child porn allegations,
former North Dakota Sen. Ray Holmberg gave him a ride from Grand Forks to Bismarck.
Nicholas Morgan-Derosier, 35,mentioned during a police search of his home that
"the senator" would give him a ride to meet with the state Consumer Protection Division, according to a recording played in court during an evidence hearing in his federal case.
Transcripts of the Oct. 6, 2020, meeting, obtained through an open records request from the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office, confirm Holmberg drove Morgan-Derosier to the State Capitol.
It’s unknown what the two talked about during the nearly four-hour drive from Grand Forks. Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, attended a legislative energy development and transmission committee meeting that day, according to committee meeting minutes.
Through his attorney, Mark Friese, Holmberg declined an interview for this story.
The drive further ties the former longest-serving state senator to the defendant in a federal case where Morgan-Derosier is accused of sharing child porn and bringing two children from the Twin Cities to Grand Forks with intentions of sexually abusing them.
Another police report said Morgan-Derosier reported a theft at Holmberg’s house on the former senator’s behalf, though Holmberg declined to press charges. The documents, also obtained through an open records request, connect the two beyond text messages they sent to each other while Morgan-Derosier was in jail on child porn allegations.
Holmberg, one of North Dakota’s most powerful lawmakers,
resigned shortly after The Forum broke a story about the text messages last year.
The investigation into Morgan-Derosier’s federal case began in 2019, when law enforcement received a tip from Google that child porn was accessed on a computer for his business, Team Lawn and Landscaping, according to court documents.
The tip came shortly after Morgan-Derosier, according to police reports, accidentally drove over and killed his business partner, Robert Coons, with a skid-steer loader in early 2019.
The death happened in a street in front of Holmberg’s Grand Forks address, a detective testified in court.
Several days after the skid-steer death, Morgan-Derosier reported a burglary during which the computers at the center of the tip were, according to the defendant, stolen, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Puhl said in a court hearing.
“Nicholas lives in East Grand Forks … and was the reporting party on the fatal accident and also the burglary into Robert’s home. It is all super weird,” Grand Forks Police Detective Jennifer Freeman wrote in an email to Homeland Security Special Agent Mike Arel that was read during the motion hearing.
Puhl called the reported burglary and skid-steer death “of interest in the case,” noting the computers, which prosecutors alleged had child porn on them, were found months later in Morgan-Derosier’s home.
“But what’s of interest is the devices weren’t stolen,” Puhl said in a January 2022 federal detention hearing for Morgan-Derosier. “All of those devices were there. He lied to law enforcement”.
Skid-steer death
A police report details
the skid-steer death around 3 a.m. Feb. 9, 2019, in the 600 block of High Plains Court.
Grand Forks Detective David Buzzo testified during Morgan-Derosier’s hearing to suppress evidence in the federal case that the fatal incidenthappened in the street near Holmberg’s home. A federal judge ruled against Morgan-Derosier on his motion to suppress, meaning the case will continue.
Coons, who owned Team Lawn with Morgan-Derosier, was riding in the bucket of a skid-steer driven by Morgan-Derosier when Coons fell out of the bucket, the report said. Morgan-Derosier told police he attempted to stop, but he drove over Coons, according to police. Morgan-Derosier then backed up, a police report said.
Coons, who was 61, died at the scene.
Coons’ death was ruled an accident by police, the report said. The case was not sent to Grand Forks prosecutors for review since no foul play was suspected, the report said.
Evidence in the case was “purged from the system” since the statute of limitations expired, which was three years in this case, according to the Grand Forks Police Department.
The Grand Forks Police Department declined to comment further on Coons’ death, citing the ongoing federal investigation.
Morgan-Derosier said the two men were clearing snow and putting equipment away when Coons fell out of the skid-steer bucket, the police report said. Riding in the bucket was not out of the ordinary, as they had done it “hundreds of times before,” Morgan-Derosier said in the report.
Morgan-Derosier said he tried to call 911, but his phone battery was dead due to the cold, the report said. The report indicated the temperature was minus 22 degrees at the time.
Morgan-Derosier charged his phone and called as soon as he could, the report said. Then he rendered first aid to Coons as instructed by dispatchers, according to the report.
He was cited for driving with a suspended license, but the charge was dismissed after he pleaded guilty to a similar charge in Minnesota, according to court documents.
Child porn tips and burglaries
Shortly after Coons’ death, North Dakota law enforcement was made aware of one of the first tips for potential child porn possession in Morgan-Derosier’s federal case, according to a transcript from his motion to suppress evidence hearing.
Morgan-Derosier told the state consumer protection division someone broke into Coons’ home within days of his death, according to a transcript of that meeting. He told police there were two burglaries, according to court documents.
Police reports obtained through an open records request confirmed the investigations into the burglaries. Coons’ sister reported the Feb. 13, 2019, break-in, while Morgan-Derosier called in the second one about five days later.
Two men appear to walk toward Robert Coons' house before reportedly stealing two laptops in February 2019. Nicholas Morgan-Derosier reported the theft, but the computers were later found at his house, according to federal prosecutors.
Contributed / Grand Forks Police Department
In both cases, the suspect reportedly broke through a basement window, according to police reports.
Morgan-Derosier reported two business laptops were stolen in the second burglary, the report said. He told police he was working at the house until 11:30 p.m. Feb. 18, 2019, suggesting the burglary happened between then and 3 a.m. Feb. 19, 2019.
A neighbor’s camera showed two men walking around Coons’ house, with one crawling through the basement window, the report said.
Police did not identify any suspects in the two burglaries. The reports are marked as inactive, but police could reopen the cases if “new information becomes available,” the reports said.
Grand Forks police marked the child porn investigation inactive after Morgan-Derosier told investigators the business laptops were stolen, according to prosecutors’ court documents.
