UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NORTH DAKOTA

United States of America, )

)
Plaintiff, )
) File No. 3:23-cr-00206
vs. )
)
Raymon Everett Holmberg, )
)
Defendant. )

TRANSCRIPT OF TELEPHONIC STATUS CONFERENCE

Taken at
United States Courthouse
Bismarck, North Dakota
March 6, 2024

BEFORE THE HONORABLE DANIEL HOVLAND

-- UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE --

Kristen M. Keegan
U.S. District Court Reporter
220 East Rosser Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58501
701-530-2313
Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript
produced by computer-aided transcription.
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APPEARANCES

Jennifer Puhl
U.S. Attorney's Office
655 First Avenue North
Fargo, North Dakota 58102

FOR THE UNITED STATES

- - - - - - - - - -

Mark A. Friese
Vogel Law Firm
218 NP Avenue
Fargo, North Dakota 58107

FOR THE DEFENDANT

- - - - - - - - - -

Certificate of Court Reporter - Page 9

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1 (The above-entitled matter came before the Court, the

2 Honorable Daniel L. Hovland, United States District Court

3 Judge, presiding, commencing at 9:45 a.m., Wednesday,

4 March 6, 2024, in the United States Courthouse, Bismarck, North

5 Dakota. The following telephonic proceedings were had and made

6 of record in chambers with counsel present:)

7 ---------------

8 THE COURT: Good morning.

9 MS. PUHL: Good morning, Judge.

10 MR. FRIESE: Good morning.

11 THE COURT: I've got a court reporter here, so maybe

12 if each of you could identify who you are and who's -- who may

13 be sitting with you.

14 MR. FRIESE: Good morning, Your Honor. Mark Friese

15 appearing for Mr. Holmberg.

16 MS. PUHL: Your Honor, Jennifer Puhl on behalf of the

17 United States and my -- I'm out of state right now but I also

18 have two folks from my office that are appearing from -- or

19 that are on the line from North Dakota. And in addition, my

20 child partner, Charles Schmitz, may be joining us. He's with

21 the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and I believe he

22 was going to be joining us. I don't know if he's joined us

23 yet. But he may join us at a later time if he hasn't joined us

24 already.

25 THE COURT: He's with DOJ out of Washington or?

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1 MS. PUHL: That's right, Your Honor.

2 THE COURT: Okay. Well, thank you for making

3 yourselves available. I won't take up too much of your time.

4 I really want to get a feel for where this case is at and the

5 likelihood of it going to trial on April 29th. I've been going

6 down to Rapid City and trying cases and they approached me

7 again about a trial that particular week of -- the last week of

8 April and if I can do it, I'll do it, if not -- and this case

9 is teed up for trial, that's fine.

10 But I just really wanted to get a handle on where

11 this case is at, if there's any discovery disputes or any other

12 issues that I should be made aware of and the likelihood of it

13 going to trial on the 29th of April is what I would like to

14 know. So I'll turn to the Government first. Ms. Puhl.

15 MS. PUHL: Yes. Well, certainly we are prepared to

16 proceed to trial on April 29th, but it's my understanding in

17 talking to Mr. Friese that he needs additional time to examine

18 the defendant's iPad and cell phone. In addition, we executed

19 a search warrant about three weeks ago on an additional phone

20 and that forensic examination has not yet been completed and so

21 he has not received any reports, nor have I for that matter,

22 but as soon as that examination is complete, he will receive a

23 report on that matter.

24 So I expect that the trial will need to be continued.

25 Is that right, Mr. Friese?

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1 MR. FRIESE: Correct. Ms. Puhl has outlined it

2 correctly, Your Honor. The defendant will be filing a motion

3 to continue and my understanding is the Government is not going

4 to object based on what Ms. Puhl has outlined.

5 MS. PUHL: That's right.

6 THE COURT: And how long of a delay do you anticipate

7 that you'll need?

8 MR. FRIESE: Our forensic expert, to my knowledge,

9 Your Honor, still has not received the data that -- that we're

10 looking at reviewing. His estimate to me would be four to six

11 weeks to complete his review when I last spoke with him last

12 week. And I don't know how long the additional discovery's

13 going to take for analysis from -- and disclosure from the

14 Government, Your Honor, but a minimum of six weeks.

15 THE COURT: So when do you envision filing a motion

16 to continue?

17 MR. FRIESE: I planned on doing so after this

18 morning's conference, Your Honor.

19 THE COURT: Oh, okay. Okay. And what --

20 MS. PUHL: And that --

21 THE COURT: Go ahead.

22 MS. PUHL: -- those extractions of the iPad and the

23 cell phone I was told were sent out a week ago Friday. So if

24 they haven't been received by Mr. Menke yet, that would be

25 unusual and we'll certainly look into that.

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1 THE COURT: So is it one iPad and one cell phone?

2 MS. PUHL: That's right. There's also an e-mail

3 account too. But to date, Mr. Friese has not asked to examine

4 the contents of that, although I expect that may come at a

5 later time.

6 THE COURT: So what impact, if any, is this recent

7 disclosure of Wayne Stenehjem's data from a cell phone going to

8 have on this trial and the discovery in this case?

9 MS. PUHL: Yeah. Your Honor, it was a very limited

10 search of that phone. The scope of it is fairly limited. The

11 defendant left a voicemail with Mr. Stenehjem shortly after the

12 search warrant was executed that same day and we interviewed

13 Mr. Stenehjem as part of that -- recovery of that voicemail.

14 He then passed away. So we were looking to obtain the

15 voicemail as well as anything else about the investigation on

16 that phone.

17 I actually don't think the review of that cell phone

18 will take terribly long, Your Honor.

19 THE COURT: And you're on the same page, Mr. Friese,

20 or you have a different perspective?

21 MR. FRIESE: I -- I have no idea, Your Honor. I have

22 not seen the contents of -- of the review. I've seen the

23 search warrant application and affidavit, so I understand

24 generally what the Government is looking for, but I have not

25 seen the results of the search. But I believe that's all

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1 accurate and correct.

2 THE COURT: All right. All right. Well, that's

3 really all I want to know. It doesn't sound like we'll be

4 trudging ahead to a trial on April 29th and that's fine. Do

5 you plan on filing anything in response to Mr. Friese's motion

6 to continue, Jennifer, or?

7 MS. PUHL: No, Your Honor. I'm in agreement with it.

8 THE COURT: All right. Anything else that --

9 MS. PUHL: I --

10 THE COURT: Go ahead.

11 MS. PUHL: Just one final matter, Your Honor. We are

12 in negotiations, I think that's fair to say, but in the event

13 that we don't resolve this matter, I expect that Mr. Friese

14 will be filing a motion to suppress in which case I'd like to

15 avoid yet another continuance. So with that in mind, I

16 respectfully request that the motions deadline be set at least

17 60 days in advance of the trial date.

18 THE COURT: All right.

19 MS. PUHL: Of course disclosure of experts, motions

20 in limine, that, of course, would be excluded.

21 THE COURT: Sure. All right. Anything else that I

22 can take care of here today for either one of you?

23 MR. FRIESE: Nothing from the defense, Your Honor.

24 Thank you.

25 MS. PUHL: Nothing further from the United States.

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1 Thank you, Your Honor.

2 THE COURT: All right. Thanks for making yourselves

3 available. Have a good day.

4 (Proceedings concluded at 9:53 a.m., the same day.)

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1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER

3 I, Kristen M. Keegan, a district court reporter,

4 DO HEREBY CERTIFY that I recorded in shorthand the

5 foregoing proceedings had and made of record at the time and

6 place hereinbefore indicated.

7 I DO HEREBY FURTHER CERTIFY that the foregoing

8 typewritten pages contain an accurate transcript of my

9 shorthand notes then and there taken.

10 Dated at Bismarck, North Dakota, this 29th day of

11 March, 2024.

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16 /s/ Kristen M. Keegan

______________________________
17 KRISTEN M. KEEGAN
United States District Court Reporter
18 District of North Dakota
Western Division
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