The Perverted Lives of the Rich and Famous > DOJ not releasing interview transcripts of ND lawmakers CSA trial; County clerk faced CSA accusations before appointment in Palm Beach

 

DOJ not releasing interview transcripts in Ray Holmberg child sex abuse case

The federal agency denied The Forum's request more than a year after Holmberg was sentenced for traveling to Prague with plans to sexually abuse children.

Ray Holmberg.

Contributed / Cass County Jail

By April Baumgarten

August 22, 2026 at 6:29 AM

FARGO — A federal agency is not releasing witness interviews in the child sex abuse investigation into former North Dakota Sen. Ray Holmberg, including those involving the disgraced lawmaker's close friends.

The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal division in a Thursday, Aug. 20, letter declined The Forum’s request for interview transcripts that federal agents conducted in the Holmberg case, nearly a year after the DOJ confirmed it received the Freedom of Information Act request Oct. 10, 2025. Citing federal law, the criminal division said the transcripts did not have an "overriding public interest” and that “disclosure of law enforcement records concerning an individual could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

“Because any nonpublic records responsive to your request would be categorically exempt from disclosure, this office is not required to conduct a search for the requested records,” the criminal division letter said. “Please be advised that we have considered the foreseeable harm standard.”

The answer to The Forum’s request comes more than a year after Holmberg was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for traveling to Prague multiple times between 2011 and 2016 with plans to sexually abuse children. The 82-year-old Republican pleaded guilty to the charge, and North Dakota U.S. Judge Daniel Hovland gave the former senator the maximum punishment on March 26, 2025.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Puhl cross-examines a witness during the Wednesday, March 26, 2025, sentencing hearing for former North Dakota Sen. Ray Holmberg, center, at the Quentin N. Burdick U.S. Courthouse in Fargo.

Trygve Olson / The Forum

Holmberg is serving his sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Federal records indicate he could be released Jan. 23, 2033.

Holmberg, who lived in Grand Forks, served in the North Dakota Senate from 1977 to 2022. He resigned from office after The Forum reported he texted a jailed Nicholas Morgan-Derosier in April 2021. Morgan-Derosier was in the Grand Forks County Jail on child sex abuse materials, and Holmberg asked Morgan-Derosier to bring his 19- or 20-year-old boyfriend over for a massage, according to court transcripts.

Morgan-Derosier is serving a 40-year sentence in federal prison for possessing, receiving and distributing child sex abuse material. Prosecutors claimed Morgan-Derosier sexually abused multiple children, though he was never charged in connection to those allegations.

The letter from the DOJ doesn’t confirm whether the records The Forum requested exist. A North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation report released a month after Holmberg's sentencing hearing said federal agents interviewed several of Holmberg’s close friends, including the late North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. Stenehjem died unexpectedly in late January 2022 from cardiac arrest, almost two months after federal agents interviewed the state’s top law enforcement agent Dec. 1, 2021.

Stenehjem deleted three voicemails Holmberg left the late attorney general before and after the federal interview, current North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley previously told The Forum. Stenehjem shared one of the messages with a Homeland Security agent, Wrigley said.

“Wayne, this is my burner phone,” the message said. “I’m in big trouble. Don’t tell anyone."

The BCI report also connected Holmberg to former University of North Dakota Center for Innovation CEO Bruce Gjovig. Holmberg sent Gjovig an email asking what he thought of the former senator’s “twink,” to which Gjovig said he was “too young.”

“No one is ever to (sic) young… remembr (sic) Prague,” Holmberg replied back, according to the BCI documents.

In a statement through his attorney, Gjovig said he never went to Prague and denied knowing about Holmberg’s criminal activity. Gjovig testified under oath in the Holmberg case as required by law, the statement said.

Fargo businessman Jim Poolman also confirmed federal agents interviewed him in the case. The former UND Alumni Association and Foundation chairman and North Dakota insurance commissioner said he spoke with Homeland Security for about 30 minutes in September 2023 about the case, about a month before Holmberg was indicted.

The two worked together for years, but Poolman said he knew nothing about Holmberg’s “heinous activities and (had) done nothing illegal.”

Palm Beach County Clerk Michael Caruso faced prior child sex abuse accusation before DeSantis appointment

Divorce records reviewed by WPBF 25 News Investigates show that 

Mike Caruso’s ex-wife accused him of sexually abusing a child more

than a decade before Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him Palm Beach

County clerk. Caruso denied the allegation.

Suspended Palm Beach County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Mike Caruso remained jailed without bond Thursday after appearing before a judge in Orange County on charges accusing him of sexually abusing a young family member.

But a WPBF 25 News Investigates review of court records has uncovered another allegation involving Caruso and a child, dating back more than a decade before Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to one of Palm Beach County’s highest-ranking elected offices.

Caruso denied that earlier allegation and accused his former wife of orchestrating a false sexual abuse case against him.

Suspended Palm Beach County clerk of court held without bond on felony charges

Caruso appears before Orange County judge

Caruso appeared by video for his first appearance after being transferred to the Orange County Jail.

"Good afternoon, sir. State your name," the judge said.

"Michael Allen Caruso," Caruso replied.

Caruso faces five felony charges: kidnapping, lewd or lascivious molestation, lewd or lascivious exhibition, luring or enticing a child and child abuse causing mental injury.

Investigators say the alleged victim was under 12 years old when the abuse allegedly occurred. Court records say the alleged abuse began in 2024 and escalated in August 2025.

Caruso has denied sexually abusing the child.

Before his arrest, Caruso voted for law allowing death penalty in child sex cases

Divorce records reveal earlier child abuse allegations

Court records reviewed by Investigative Reporter Terri Parker show Caruso filed for divorce from his former wife in 2012.

In a counterpetition, his former wife accused Caruso of having "a history of physical and emotional abuse of one or more of the children."

The dispute escalated in early 2013, when Caruso's attorney directly addressed an allegation of sexual abuse involving a child.

"The Wife has intentionally orchestrated and caused a false sexual abuse case to be filed and pursued against the Husband," his attorney wrote, adding that Caruso's former wife knew "the allegations are not true."

The voluminous divorce case paints a picture of years of bitter conflict between the couple, with both sides accusing the other of conduct they said was harming their children.

The Miami Herald reported Thursday that Delray Beach police and the Florida Department of Children and Families investigated a child sexual abuse allegation against Caruso in 2012. According to the Herald, the investigation did not result in criminal charges. WPBF 25 News Investigates has requested the Delray Beach police records and is waiting to receive them.

Mike Caruso's name remains on November ballot despite arrest on child sex charges

Alleged abuse occurred around time Caruso took office

The current criminal case involves separate allegations more than a decade later.

Investigators say the alleged abuse occurred over a period of months beginning in 2024, with the most serious allegations in August 2025.

That was the same month Caruso became Palm Beach County clerk.

DeSantis appointed Caruso to fill the vacancy on Aug. 18, 2025.

One year later, on Aug. 18, 2026, Caruso was arrested.

DeSantis immediately suspended him from office and appointed a replacement. Caruso's name, however, remains on the November ballot for clerk of court.

The arrest is now raising questions about whether the previous allegations surfaced when the governor's office vetted Caruso for the appointment.

DeSantis told reporters after Caruso's arrest that the earlier information was not included in the materials used to vet him for the job, according to the Miami Herald.

Caruso has denied the allegations against him. The criminal case remains pending.

CSA in the USA > Meta's social media harm lawsuit settled for $17bn

 

Meta reaches $17 billion settlement with US states over social media harm to teens

Americas

Meta Platforms on Wednesday agreed to pay $17 billion to settle claims, filed by 47 US states, that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to deliberately make teens addicted to their products while deceiving the public, according to state attorneys general. The company agreed to add child-safety measures as part of the settlement. 

Issued on: 26/08/2026 - 16:31

Reading tim

By:

FRANCE 24

A demonstrator holds a banner with names of young people who advocates say died because of harm from social media outside a US courthouse in Oakland, California on August 18, 2026. © Noah Berger, AP

Meta has agreed to pay $17 billion and add child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 states, state attorneys general announced Wednesday.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023, but the deal cuts short the trial, which was expected to see CEO Mark Zuckerberg take the stand before a jury in federal court in California.

The agreement is worth $353 million in Virginia alone and is one of the biggest in state consumer protection history, Attorney General Jay Jones said in a statement.

READ MOREMeta sued by US states for hooking and exploiting kids in pursuit of profit

“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health," Jones said. The settlement "will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm”.

Meta did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The $17 billion settlement is a fraction of the company's 2025 revenue of $201 billion.

The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. It also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.

The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began his testimony late Tuesday and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.

The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. In addition, nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.

Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.

It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate” content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.

There will be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts.

The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found that the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers – especially teen girls – when it comes to mental health and body image issues.

Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions. 

But child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing. 

READ MOREFacebook and Instagram must stop ‘addictive’ features like infinite scroll, EU tells Meta

Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said during his testimony last week that Meta consistently prioritised profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental well-being.

“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.

While the four states in the Oakland trial did not officially say how much they had been seeking, Meta said in a court filing that financial penalties in the case could amount to as much as $1.4 trillion – a figure legal experts said was unlikely, if not impossible. 

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

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CSA in France > Le Scouarnac investigation resumes in France with 50 new allegations of CSA

France launches new investigation into surgeon convicted of mass child sex abuse

Prosecutors are gathering evidence on some 50 new alleged sexual assault and rape allegations against former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for abusing 299 patients over several decades last year.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on August 19, 2026, at 8:30 pm (Paris), updated on August 20, 2026, at 10:13 am 

1 min read

French prosecutors have opened a new investigation into a surgeon convicted of raping and sexually abusing patients over decades, involving some 50 new alleged offences, authorities said Wednesday, August 19.

Joël Le Scouarnec, one of the most prolific convicted sex offenders in French history, was last year sentenced to the maximum 20-year jail term for the rape or sexual assault of 299 patients, most of them minors. Lorient public prosecutor Laëtitia Mirande said "the existence of further offences came to light or was confirmed" during the trial, while authorities had also received "additional complaints."

Read more Subscribers only After Le Scouarnec sexual abuse trial, court faces challenge of compensating victims

Prosecutors have opened a judicial investigation into 40 new counts of sexual assault and 10 counts of rape, in both cases "involving a minor under the age of 15 or committed by a person abusing the authority conferred by their position," Mirande said. "The alleged offences, for which the statute of limitations has not expired, date from 1987 to 2017" and "involve 48 victims," the prosecutor added.

In last year's trial, Le Scouarnec admitted sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients – 256 of them under 15 – in hospitals between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anesthesia or waking up after operations. He was arrested in 2017 following a complaint that he had raped a 6-year-old neighbor, leading police to discover files on his computer documenting his crimes and listing his victims' names, ages and addresses, as well as the nature of the abuse.

Le Scouarnec's lawyers did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Read more Subscribers only Trial of child abuser Le Scouarnec reveals ignored warnings

Is it Possible to End Child Sexual Abuse? What Would it Take?

 

Bloomberg School

What Would It Take to End Child Sexual Abuse?

Preventing CSA requires challenging our misconceptions, understanding where current approaches fall short, and investing in strategies that can work to keep kids safe.

An estimated 20% of all children in the U.S. will experience child sexual abuse (CSA) or attempted CSA, either online or offline, before they turn 18.

It’s a reality we have the tools to change, says Elizabeth Letourneau, PhD, a professor in Mental Health and the director of MOORE | Preventing Child Sexual Abuse. Letourneau is also the co-author of One in Five, which presents CSA as the biggest public health crisis of our time—as well as entirely preventable.

“There’s this misperception that child sexual abuse is uniquely unpreventable compared to other types of harm that can befall children, like child physical abuse, child neglect, or bullying,” Letourneau says.

In fact, evidence shows that it is possible to prevent CSA.

The Truth About CSA

What many people think about child sexual abuse has been framed in some part by news stories, TV shows, and movies centered around exposing and punishing adults who harm children. These incidents are rightfully criminalized, and adults who offend must be held accountable, Letourneau says. But the incidents that make headlines—the prosecutions of adult strangers with dozens of victims—represent a fraction of CSA offenses.

Decades of research have revealed important information about the people who sexually offend against children and the factors that put someone at greater risk of offense or victimization. Much of this evidence runs contrary to popular beliefs.

In the U.S.:

• Around 70% of in-person CSA is caused by another child. “It’s somebody they know, usually within a few years of age of the victim,” Letourneau says. In situations of children and adolescents engaging in harmful sexual behavior against other children, many simply didn’t know that what they were doing was inappropriate, Letourneau says.
• Less than 3% of children convicted or adjudicated for a sex crime will have a new charge or conviction in adulthood.
• The majority—about 60% of online and 90% of in-person CSA—of adult-perpetrated CSA is by someone known to the child or the child’s family.
• Half of adults who sexually offend against children are not predominately sexually attracted to children. People who work around children may become “situational offenders” out of proximity, opportunity, or impunity, Letourneau says.
• People with sexual attraction to children are not doomed to commit CSA. “Pedophilia is a risk factor for offending against children, but many people who have that attraction don’t want it, and they do not want to hurt children,” says Letourneau.
  But, many of them will watch CSAM, not realizing that they are contributing to creating a colossal market for kiddie-porn that results in staggering numbers of CSAs.
• 
  

Criminal Justice Is Essential, Yet Not Enough

The U.S.’s primary approach to CSA focuses on keeping people who have offended from reoffending—through incarceration, sex offense registries, and community notification. Fortunately, sexual reoffense rates are low, indicating that prosecution is a highly effective prevention strategy. In the U.S., only about 5% of sex crimes that become known to law enforcement are committed by people with a previous sex crime conviction. Current systems are not set up to prevent the other 95% of crimes committed by people without sex crime priors.

I have trouble with the 5% recidivism rate. Most studies show between 5 and 15% rates, but longer-term studies reveal rates much higher. According to Grok: Meta-analyses and reviews of adult sexual offenders overall report average sex recidivism around 13–14% over ~5–6 years, rising to roughly 20% at 10 years and 24% at 15 years. Rates for child molesters as a group are similar to rapists in some large samples, but subtypes differ. 

“We need prevention for all, healing for survivors, and justice to hold people who offend accountable.”

Moreover, post-prison interventions like registration and notification have not been shown to keep people safe—and these policies can cause significant and lasting harm, particularly for children. Researchers like Letourneau have been able to compare outcomes in states with different offense registration policies and have found that kids ages 12–17 who are placed on sex offense registries are at greatly increased risk of sexual assault victimization and have much higher rates of suicide attempts.

Every year, the U.S. spends $5.4 billion on incarcerating people convicted of CSA compared to about $3 million for CSA prevention research. “We focus on after-the-fact criminal justice solutions to CSA, which are essential, but they’re far from complete,” says Letourneau. “We need prevention for all, healing for survivors, and justice to hold people who offend accountable.”

Prevention Is Possible

Because CSA can happen at any point before age 18 and is caused by virtually anyone, it is a complex issue to prevent—but that doesn’t mean solutions don’t exist. “There’s never going to be a single intervention that can reduce most instances of child sexual abuse,” Letourneau explains. Rather, preventing CSA requires strategies at multiple levels that address a range of risk factors, environments, and populations. Many interventions are proven or promising and are worth scaling and adapting, she says.

In One in Five, Letourneau and co-author Luke Malone, MA, present evidence-based strategies that can help prevent child sexual abuse from happening in the first place, interrupt abuse and mitigate its harms, and keep it from reoccurring.

Educating Children

Most prevention efforts focus on teaching children to keep themselves safe—by recognizing, resisting, and reporting inappropriate behavior by adults—which is important, but places a lot of responsibility on children at risk of victimization, Letourneau says. These efforts also don’t address the realities of children at risk of causing harm—including against younger children or peers—or behavior during early dating.

Since the 1990s, several school-based prevention programs have reduced CSA among children and adolescents by providing age-appropriate education to middle schoolers. Programs like Safe Dates and Shifting Boundaries have taught students about healthy relationships, consent, the age of appropriate partners, what to do if they have concerns or experience sexual violence, and the legal consequences of perpetrating it. Responsible Behavior with Youth and Children (RBYC), developed by MOORE, extends this focus to include addressing the inappropriateness of sexual behavior with younger children.

• Safe Dates not only reduced sexual violence victimization and perpetration, but also empowered healthier, safer relationships as participants progressed into high school.
• A study in New York City middle schools found the Shifting Boundaries curriculum, combined with building interventions, reduced victimization by peers by 40%.
• RBYC teaches adolescents about similar concepts as Safe Dates and Shifting Boundaries, while also explicitly addressing why younger children cannot consent to sex. RBYC shows promise in preventing problem sexual behavior online and in person.

Training for Adults

“No one likes to think ‘this could happen here’,” Letourneau says. But evidence suggests that adults who spend a lot of time around children may be at increased risk of perpetrating CSA, even if they are not primarily sexually attracted to children. In addition to thoroughly vetting adults who will be in contact with kids through work or volunteering, training and regulations can help make people aware of this vulnerability while also enabling them to identify and address boundary-violating behaviors that often precede abuse and report CSA when it does happen.

In youth programs—schools, summer camps, sports and other extracurriculars—prevention can encompass a range of strategies:

• Background and reference checks for all adults.
• Detailed codes of conduct that enforce clear boundaries for interactions with youth participants.
• Training staff and volunteers to identify, intervene in, or report concerning behavior.
• Educating staff and volunteers about the potential for their own sexual thoughts to arise and how to seek help for them.
  
  Here, she avoids talking about gender types. I wonder what the odds are that men or teenage boys in roles of teacher, carers, babysitters, etc., are more likely to commit CSA than women. I am convinced the odds are staggering and that you should never leave your children in the care of males not closely related, or transgender people.

Parents can also play an important role in preventing CSA and reducing its harms by:

• Educating their children about sex, relationships, and appropriate behavior both on- and offline.
• Understanding the factors that can increase the risk of CSA at home—including the blending of unrelated adults into a home with kids.
• Knowing how to identify and interrupt boundary-violating behavior.
• Accessing support services for children who have experienced CSA.

Making Physical Spaces Safer

The Shifting Boundaries program showed how easy and effective it can be to adapt spaces within the school to prevent abuse between students. Students and teachers identified places where abuse or other bad behavior is likely to occur, and informed administrators where to implement interventions. Better lighting and faculty monitors can make hallways safer between classes, posters in bathrooms can remind kids what is appropriate and who to contact about concerning behavior, and trimming shrubs or removing unused outbuildings can remove visual barriers.

Building design can go a long way toward making interactions between adults and kids observable and interruptible—for example, by adding windows to doors and interior walls, and arranging furniture to maintain clear lines of sight. Rules prohibiting closed doors or one-on-one interactions can serve a similar purpose without modifying the structure.

“There are a lot of strategies to improve the built environment to make it safer for kids—and frankly, safer for adults too, who may not even think about abusing a kid unless it seems like it would be really easy to do,” says Letourneau.

Making Digital Spaces Safer

Letourneau and her colleagues have also seen evidence that CSA can be thwarted online. MOORE designed an online prevention program for people with sexual attraction to children called Help Wanted. Since its global launch in May 2020, this free, anonymous resource has been visited over 1.5 million times, and over 50,000 people have explored at least one of the self-help modules. “That’s how many people are trying to get help,” Letourneau says. “There are many people who seek that intervention … who want to figure out how to manage this attraction without acting on it.”

Warning and “get help” messages can help deter people from seeking out child sex abuse material (CSAM) online and increase help-seeking. In a study conducted on PornHub, users who searched the site for CSAM received a warning about the legal consequences of accessing it and a “get help” option. Of the users who got that message, 80% went back to searching for legal pornography, and a small percentage (0.6%) engaged with the provided chatbot to seek help.

Other strategies can include automated systems of detecting and removing CSAM once it’s been uploaded and shutting down websites where CSAM is hosted—and laws that hold tech companies, websites, and individuals accountable for it. New methods will be needed to tackle the current era of AI-facilitated CSAM.

Supporting Survivors

When abuse does happen, efforts need to shift to reduce recidivism and mitigate the effects of abuse. “You are not destined to a miserable life if you have survived child sexual abuse,” Letourneau emphasized on the Armchair Expert podcast, but “it’s a risk factor for almost every bad thing you can experience.”

Survivors of CSA are more likely to experience mental health issues like depression, PTSD, and addiction, and are at higher risk of future victimization of sexual violence. While most survivors will never go on to offend, victimization is also a risk factor for future perpetration, as children often model what they see or experience. Ensuring that everyone who experiences child sexual abuse has access to trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence-based support over their life can reduce the likelihood and severity of such outcomes. Similarly well-researched therapies are also helpful for adolescents who have perpetrated against other kids and their families.

Increasing awareness of CSA can empower survivors to open up about their experiences and, in turn, seek support. Lawmakers can also support survivors through policies, like those that broaden or eliminate statutes of limitations—the amount of time a survivor has to come forward about a CSA incident or take legal action against their perpetrator—which some states have already done. Likewise, it is important to ensure that institutions that enabled or ignored CSA are held accountable, along with the individuals who offend.

Making CSA Prevention a National Priority

To end to CSA, Letourneau says, the U.S. needs a national strategy that identifies the public health issue of CSA and prioritizes prevention. She wants to see the establishment of a federal Office of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention, which as she and Malone envision it in their book, would have representation from all other major entities responsible for children: “Department of Justice, Department of Education, Department of Child Welfare—they [all] have to be at the table and also have some responsibility,” Letourneau says.

“It's going to need a whole-of-government approach to implementing and adapting existing evidence-based interventions, and developing more to address gaps,” she explains, pointing to other countries already doing this. The Australian government has invested billions into better understanding the issue and developing effective intervention strategies—and can already point to reductions among some types of CSA. The European Commission is placing a stronger focus on prevention strategies, including in the tech sector, in addition to strengthening criminal enforcement and providing support for survivors. A number of European Union member countries, like Ireland, are moving in that direction, Letourneau says.

A federal government actively engaged on the issue is ultimately what will drive real change, Letourneau says. “I think that’s what it’s going to take, and I think we can get there.”

These are all useful ideas and could go a long way toward reducing CSA and the consequences of it. But CSA will not come to an end before Jesus returns. There is a large element of rebellion against God in child sex abuse. He will bring it to an end when He returns, and I suspect it will be brutal.

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