Bjerknes State Sentencing Hearing Continued To February

The former Bemidji Middle School principal who pleaded guilty in state court to four felonies for posing as a teenage boy online while having sexual conversations with students will be sentenced on federal charges before he is sentenced on state charges.

Brandon Bjerknes, 35, was scheduled to be sentenced in state court on January 10th, but that sentencing is being continued to February and will take place after Bjerknes is sentenced in federal court.

Bjerknes pleaded guilty to federal charges on Sept. 28. He will be sentenced on February 6th in St. Paul on one count of coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual conduct and one count of production of child pornography.

Court documents obtained by Lakeland News shows Gregory G. Brooker, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota, and Angela M. Munoz-Kaphing, Assistant United States Attorney, are requesting a 30 year sentence for Bjerknes followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.

Peter B. Wold, the attorney representing Bjerknes, is requesting a 15 year sentence in his Sentencing Positioning Statement.

Brooker and Munoz-Kaphing argue in their Sentencing Positioning Statement that Bjerknes used his role as Assistant Principal to fuel his predatory behavior and targeted students he knew were vulnerable because of information he obtained as Assistant Principal. They provided the court numerous graphic conversations between Bjerknes and the juveniles as evidence.

Brooker and Munoz-Kaphing state: “Bjerknes is a danger to recidivate. The evidence shows that Bjerknes is practiced at deceiving others, including those closest to him. Bjerknes was gainfully employed, married and living with his wife and two small children during the entire period of time when he was preying on his students and other minors in his community and throughout Minnesota.”

Wold says Bjerknes’s convictions provide substantial deterrence that he will never reoffend because he will have to register as a sex offender and that the humiliation Bjerknes has experienced and will continue to experience is an added deterrence.

Wold states: “He (Bjerknes) is not a recidivist offender. He had no physical contact with any of the victims. He immediately accepted responsibility for his actions when he was arrested. He spared the victims further harm that a trial can cause by entering into plea agreement that includes a sentencing guideline calculations of a life sentence. Since his plea he participates in counseling and is working hard to understand why he did what he did.”