Investigation reinvigorated after previously deleted emails from former ND Attorney General found on cell phone

(Bismarck, ND) -- The previously deleted emails of Former North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenhejem have officially been recovered, according to the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation. 

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley spoke about the discovery of the emails on the personal cell phone of Stenhejem on the Jay Thomas Show. The phone was originally brought to the BCI by his widow, Beth Stenehjem, February of 2022 to secure photos on the phone to be used in the funeral of Wayne. Due to technical issues and concerns, the phone could not be opened until updates to it were completed and the password could be correctly guessed . This was finished the following year, February of 2023 with a machine that attempts passwords until it finds the correct one.  

"Then it went into a perpetual loop, it just kept looping so investigators left it," described Wrigley, who continued by saying a May upgrade to technology in the BCI allowed investigators to open the phone and secure the photos for Beth, also delivering the former AG's personal phone to her in the process. However, when the investigators broke into the phone, the technology automatically downloaded a copy of the phone's contents.

The discovery of the once-thought deleted emails became apparent to the BCI as the trial into a federal criminal investigation into Former State Senator Ray Holmberg. Wrigley says a piece of evidence in Holmberg's trial was previously found in the phone, and investigators searched through the copied phone data to see if additional evidence was contained within. That is when the BCI learned of Wayne's emails, finding the once-deleted messages in the digital files. The emails are expected to become public record once Holmberg's trial is complete.

A warrant was signed off by a judge to continue a search of the phone's data.

Wrigley says an estimated 2,000+ emails from a personal and government account were found in the phone. A "very very significant volume" of text messages were also discovered by the BCI. All of the documents are currently under investigation.

Wrigley posits two theories as to how the emails were not deleted from the phone. The first being the "kill order" for deleting the emails never reached the phone. This could occur if the phone was on airplane-mode, or a similar method. A second way the emails could have remained is due to the documents being cached into the phone, which would preserve the items in some form even if the device received the order to delete each email.

The emails were deleted following a request from Stenhejem's chief assistant and spokesperson, Liz Brocker. Emails brought to light through an open records request show Broker saying "We want to make sure no one has an opportunity to make an Open Record request for his emails, especially as he [Stenehjem] kept EVERYTHING."