The big, bad bogey man

Editor’s Note: The Times made several attempts to interview Broulik in prison for this story, but each time he declined our requests. The comments from Broulik used in the story were taken from court documents and his sentencing hearing in federal court. 
By all accounts, Brian Broulik grew up enjoying a “typical” life as a farmer’s son in rural Steele County.
Broulik seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. He finished high school with a 3.8 GPA, successfully obtained a college degree and worked for a few years as a researcher.
But then something drastically went wrong. Broulik’s life completely changed and his life began a downward spiral that later earned him the classification as a pedophile and a Level 3 sex offender, the most dangerous in Minnesota, and eventually led him to being locked up behind bars for 27 years.
The quiet and reserved farmer’s son became what some police officials have referred to as “the big, bad bogey man.”
Among other things, he innocently lured victims via the computer capitalizing on his farm roots by using the username, “MN_farm_guy_007.” Authorities would later learn Broulik used the account to send and receive child pornography. He also used Yahoo! Instant messaging to engage in chats discussing the rape and torture of children.
Police admit they were appalled at what they found. Broulik preyed on victims in impoverished neighborhoods, and in fact, boasted in one post, “poor kids r easy.”
Sgt. Tom Claymon of the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office said Broulik is the most prolific predator he has ever encountered in his career. “Every day he is locked up is another day our communities are safer,” he said.
U.S. Attorney, Andrew Luger, wrote to the court, “The defendant’s criminal history makes clear that he is a pedophile who is also a horrifying combination of impulsive opportunist and calculating predator. In short, he is every parent’s worst nightmare.”
Criminal Beginnings
Broulik was 23 years old when he committed his first offense in 1996. He had been charged with criminal sexual conduct involving a minor. Prior to that offense, he did not have as much as a traffic ticket on his record. The allegations and his later admission to the crime shocked his entire family.
According to court records, Broulik molested a young boy in an apartment building in Owatonna on Feb. 7, 1996. Broulik used this line to lure the boy in as his first victim, “You’re all wet, let me help you unzip your snow pants.” Broulik unzipped the boy’s pants and reached in to grab his genitals. In an interview with police, he admitted to his actions.
And that was just the beginning of Broulik’s criminal life.
Just one day before his sentencing on the first case in May 1997, a similar incident took place in Northfield. This time around Broulik approached a young boy and asked him if he wanted to see a snake. Broulik led the boy into a nearby apartment building to fondle the “snake”— the boy’s penis.
In filing for a warrant with the court in Rice County for the Northfield offense, police expressed “concern that this defendant (Broulik) is out of control and is dangerous to other young males.”
A warrant was quickly issued and police picked up Broulik on the Northfield incident.
Six years after the original offense, Broulik confided to his parents that he was homosexual. The news again came as a shock to his parents. At the time, his mother did not ignore the problems and tried to make sense of the situation by asking questions and listening to her son.
Throughout the late 1990s and through to 2010, Broulik was in and out of prison and treatment. By the end of 2010, his mother died from cancer. And, unfortunately, by the fall of 2011, things started taking an even more ugly turn for Broulik.
He was living by himself and began relying on his computer to fill his loneliness. Broulik explored chat rooms that were sexual in nature. He began looking at pornography. At the end of 2011, he was fully immersed in porn and began using social groups to talk openly about sex.
Broulik was characterized as being lonely, depressed and unable to get into a treatment program, as he was not under the care of the corrections department any longer. Demons began appearing in his life.
Child Porn Case
Through his online chats, Broulik began receiving child porn and started explicit conversations through Yahoo messenger and text messages. He began viewing child porn through a file-sharing program.
On March 9, 2012, an undercover officer signed into a file-sharing program to investigate the possession of child porn. The officer downloaded 33 images from Broulik’s folder. Officers obtained a search warrant based on what they found.
During a raid of his home, vehicle and computers, officers uncovered 1,801 images. In addition, they found 40 more images on his cell phone.
The 2012 case soon led to a federal indictment against Broulik for one count each of producing, distributing and possessing child pornography. In October 2013, he accepted a plea agreement that resulted in him being locked up in federal prison for 27 years.
The FBI was the lead agency in the case, but asked for help from Olmsted County. Mike Ranfranz, a detective with the sheriff’s office since 2008, received a call for help from the FBI for what he thought was just going to be an afternoon. Little did he know his workload would be solely focused on Broulik for weeks.
What began as a simple afternoon of assistance on a computer-related search warrant quickly evolved into an international, multijurisdictional investigation, resulting in the arrests of several child porn distributors. Broulik was one of them.
Ranfranz and others searched Broulik’s Blooming Prairie-area home that afternoon, but found he wasn’t there. They found another man, who Ranfranz found to be shaking. “He must have just gotten out of prison himself,” the detective said.
Police learned that Broulik was working at Seneca in Rochester. They went there and searched Broulik’s vehicle in which they found a computer and flash drives.
“There were 410 images of very graphic sexual acts on children being raped,” Ranfranz said. “There was a lot of disturbing stuff.”
Investigators enlisted the help of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to assist in determining if the images were known and if there were known victims in the images.
“As we went through the case, it started to unravel more,” Ranfranz said. “I got overwhelmed almost immediately in the first couple weeks,” he added.
Claymon referred to the investigation as an onion that peels off layer after layer. The Broulik case led to arrests both nationally and internationally in places like Great Britain and New Zealand.
As investigators poured through the images, one in particular stood out. It was a young boy and police figured out the image had been taken with Broulik’s cell phone.
Police turned to the Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association in Rochester for help in identifying the victim in the image. The IMAA began posting a sensitized photo of the boy in area grocery stores. A short time later the victim was identified as a 4-year-old boy from Kasson.
“It’s really a miracle that we found the boy,” Ranfranz said. “To find the boy was very critical to this case,” he said, adding they ended up with a great case against Broulik.
Cases like this are solved by 10 percent of good, hard police work and 90 percent of it ends up being luck, Sgt. Claymon said. “We got lucky on this case in which we were in the right spot at the right time,” he said.
The victim, Ranfranz said, turned out to look just like the kid on the photo from Broulik’s phone.
Ranfranz and others spent months going through all the evidence against Broulik. They not only found images with children, but also adults. “They often talked about having sex with each other and sex with children,” Ranfranz said. “You would be shocked at what they were saying. Some of the things they were talking about doing to each other were horrific.”
Asked what was most disturbing to him about the Broulik case, Ranfranz replied: “The constant chatter and talk he had of having sex with kids.” He also found the images on his cell phone as being distressing.
The Bogey Man
Sgt. Claymon looks at the Broulik case in utter disgust.
“This was the big, bad bogey man that your parents talked to you about when you were a kid,” Claymon said. “Every parent should be happy that this man is off the streets.”
Added detective Ranfranz: “He is a true child predator.” In fact, Ranfranz thought about it a little more and classified Broulik as an “evil predator” because of his past actions of preying on children. Ranfranz doesn’t see Broulik changing because he can’t control himself.
But Broulik’s federal defender, Manny Atwal, disagrees with that assessment. “I don’t see him that way at all,” Atwal said. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I have to go with my gut with it.”
Claymon stopped short of calling Broulik a king pen of child porn, but said, “Based on his connections, he is a very active member of the child porn community.”
As happy as Claymon was to arrest Broulik, he knows that they still have their work cut out for them. “When you knock a guy like Broulik out, there is always someone waiting in the shadows,” Claymon said.
Porn cases like Broulik’s are troubling for law enforcement. “Short of a homicide, I don’t know of a worse crime than preying on kids. They are helpless,” Claymon said.
In looking at Broulik’s cases, Ranfranz found that the molester preys on kids who are down and out, live in low-income places and children who aren’t being watched.
“That’s what predators do in the wild. They look for the weakest,” Ranfranz said.
Part of the problem people need to be careful about is that some molesters like Broulik do not fit the typical image of a child predator, Ranfranz said. “He looks like an average Joe,” he said. “He’s soft spoken and polite, but there’s a monster hiding inside of him.”
Claymon put it more bluntly. He said as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t just look at a person and not worry about him. He added it’s important not to judge somebody based on his or her appearance.
Ranfranz encourages parents and other community members to always be on their guard and be aware of their surroundings. People should always call police to report any suspicious behavior.
Police found that Broulik often sat back and fantasized as kids played outdoors. “He would then decide what he wanted to do with them,” Claymon said, adding all of Broulik’s victims were random and had no connection to him.
“It’s tough to prevent this, especially when there is someone out there where this is on their mind,” Ranfranz said.
Added Claymon: “Short of being handcuffed to your kid 24/7, there was nothing the parents could have done to prevent this (in Broulik’s case).”
Claymon assures the public that Broulik isn’t alone. “There are probably more out there than we care to know about,” Claymon said.
Ranfranz’s work as well as the work of a pair of officers from Rochester Police earned them commendations from the FBI. Officers Chad Blanchette and Jared Pankratz assisted with the case.
Unsuccessful Treatment
Broulik’s first treatment program began in 1997 in Sioux Falls. The group met once a week and the program consisted of writing down thoughts on sheets and discussing them in a group setting. Broulik shared stressors in his life, but nothing related to his sexual behavior.
He did not take the treatment serious and was very much in denial of his behavior, according to court documents. His schoolwork came first and treatment was on the bottom of the list.
His second round at treatment happened in 1999 in Moose Lake. However, the program was not completed because Broulik was released from prison in 2000. He remained free of crimes involving minors for the next decade.
Broulik found treatment in Rochester from 2001 to 2005. During this time, he attended three sessions with his parents. He confessed his past actions and unhealthy thoughts, even though his father didn’t care to hear about them.
In 2007, Broulik was sent to prison for two years for failure to register. He entered treatment once again at Lino Lakes. But he was unable to complete the program because he was released from prison prior to the end.
After February 2010 when he was discharged from state supervision, Broulik did not receive any type of sex offender treatment, programming or counseling. He tried, but each time he was told he had to be referred by the corrections department.
The latest round of offenses happened during the time period when Broulik could not find any treatment.
U.S. Attorney’s Office
The prosecution of Broulik’s latest skirmish with the law fell onto the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis. Karen Schommer, deputy criminal chief, said her office fought for 27 years because of Broulik’s criminal history and background.
Like law enforcement, Schommer found Broulik’s history of abusing children as “very disturbing.” She said his actions not only resulted in sexual abuse, but also the documenting of the abuse and showing it with other predators is beyond comprehension. “That gives the abuse a life of its own,” she said referring to the images produced by predators. “We see that far too often in these cases.”
One of the goals with sentencing is to make sure it serves as a deterrent for others who may be thinking about such behavior, according to Schommer. “We make sure people are punished for this,” she said.
Another goal in combatting this behavior is to dry up the demand. “One would hope it would lead to less supply in the child porn arena,” Schommer said.
Schommer said Broulik had a number of opportunities for treatment over the years, which proved to be ineffective. “The system did what it could,” she said. “What you’re left with is putting them behind bars so we can protect the community.”
She stopped short of calling Broulik’s case the worst of the worst. “They are all bad,” Schmommer said. “Any case we have involving sexual abuse of kids, they are all bad and they are all troubling,” she added.
But Sgt. Claymon disagrees to some extent. “He is the worst of the worst,” Claymon said of Broulik. “It would have been easier to digest if there was a direct connection between Broulik and the kids.”
In her 10 years of handling such cases, Schommer said it never gets any easier. “It’s very hard to deal with this subject matter,” she said. “We rescue children from abuse. It doesn’t diminish the trauma, but it’s rewarding to punish the offenders.”
Internet Perpetuates Abuse
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of child pornography cases since the advent of the Internet, according to Schommer. “It has fostered this industry,” she said.
Schommer said predators are now able to connect in ways they weren’t ever able to before the Internet. But, she warns, police are also lurking on the Internet.
“Law enforcement is on the same channels to find predators,” Schommer said, noting there are undercover officers trying to keep up on the increase. “The Internet has facilitated the crime as well as law enforcement’s ability to catch the people committing the crimes.”
The Minnesota ICAC Task Force actively investigates child porn cases. Last year the task force received more than 1,000 cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that were reviewed and investigated, according to Jill Oliveira of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
The task force is comprised of over 100 affiliate law enforcement agencies across Minnesota who has been trained to investigate ICAC-related offenses, Oliveira said.
“When distribution over the Internet became available, it made it easier for criminals to distribute child pornographic material and to find like-minded people,” Oliveira said.
One roadblock that the Internet causes is that it often provides anonymity to predators, Schommer said. “Sometimes we can’t overcome that,” she said. But, she is quick to add that law enforcement has the tools and it is doing everything to keep up with predators.
FBI agents work closely with state and local officers on criminal sexual cases because child porn is often involved. Such cases become federal when photographing of sex acts takes place, according to Schommer.
The feds see the most volume with cases of distributing and receiving of child porn. However, there is an alarming increase in the production of child porn, Schommer said. 
In the Broulik case, he encompassed everything from receiving to distribution and finally to production. As Broulik’s case unfolded, he was found to be involved in the sex acts along with documenting it and sharing it with others, Schommer said. Most recently Broulik utilized various forms of digital media, including instant messaging.
Failed Civil Commitment
Broulik went to prison for violating his parole in 2005. When he was set to be released in late 2005, then Steele County attorney Doug Ruth made an effort to hold Broulik under the state’s civil commitment law labeling Broulik as a dangerous sexual offender. Today lawmakers and the courts are hotly debating that law.
Three forensic psychologists—one appointed by the court and two independently sought by the county attorney—examined Broulik between February and June 2006. Each one came back with the same conclusion that Broulik should not be locked up. He did not meet the statutory criteria for civil commitment.
Frustrated with the findings, there was nothing more the county attorney could do but request for the petition to be dismissed. The judge tossed it out in June 2006 and Broulik was released from custody. A successful commitment would have meant Broulik would have been locked up indefinitely in the St. Peter hospital, and possibly kept from torturing more young children.
“We didn’t have the evidence to prove it,” said Dan McIntosh, Steele County Attorney who worked as an assistant attorney in the office at the time. “Three reports did not recommend commitment,” he said, adding there is no one better equipped to handle these types of cases than the doctors used for Broulik.
McIntosh said it’s obvious Broulik fooled three different doctors before going back out a few years later and reoffending again.
“It made me sick when I learned of the new cases,” McIntosh admitted. “It’s our worst nightmare. Unfortunately, sometimes we get bad results.”
Said McIntosh: “This case is unique in all of the history of Steele County in the sense that someone was screened out of civil commitment and ended up reoffending.”
Broulik is one of the worst, if not the worst, sexual offenders in Steele County, according to McIntosh.
The county attorney said the end result was awful what happened with Broulik, but he stopped short of blaming the system for allowing it to happen.
“I don’t know what anyone could have done differently without the evidence to support it,” McIntosh said. “We don’t lock people up because we have an inkling that we should be scared of them,” he added.
The entire civil commitment process is currently being debated in the state legislature. There is a push to make it even more difficult to hold people and treat them, McIntosh said. “I don't think public safety is enhanced by that.”
In regards to Broulik, McIntosh is not worried.
“I do not think he will ever walk another free step again,” he said.
What’s Ahead?
Prior to sentencing last year, Broulik wrote a handwritten statement to the court saying, “I don’t like hurting, or taking advantage of minors, their families or their friends. But that’s what I have done, but that is not what I want to do in the future. I want to put a stop to this unhealthy behavior. I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”
Broulik also provided the court with a list of how he will remain law abiding. It included in part:
-       Enter and complete a sex offender treatment program;
-       Obtain a sponsor and be honest with them about my offending history;
-       Know my triggers and put together a plan for when they occur;
-       Create a healthy support system;
-       Know that there are consequences for my harmful actions;
-       Learn to manage my depression, work on my communication skills and focus on future goals outside the prison walls.
In June 2014, U.S. Federal Judge David Doty sentenced Broulik to 27 years in prison. He will be required to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence.
“Twenty-seven years is a hard way to learn a lesson, but it does serve as a deterrent,” said Atwal, Broulik’s federal defender. “It makes me sad. It is a really long time for someone who is 41 years old and never done more than two years in prison,” she said at the time of sentencing.
Added Sgt. Claymon: “One way of ensuring that there are no more children victims is to keep him in prison.”
During sentencing, Broulik, who was dressed in an orange jump suit and tennis shoes, told the judge that he was “greatly sorry for what I did.”
Broulik went on to say, “I didn’t wake up one morning and decide I wanted to be a pedophile. It was many years of loneliness and despair.”
As Broulik was led away by authorities after sentencing, he frowned and waved to his elderly father, who was in the courtroom.
In addition to the lengthy sentence, the judge ordered Broulik to lifetime supervision once he gets out of prison. The federal government will monitor him for the rest of his life and he will be subject to search at any time. He will also be required to undergo intensive sexual offender treatment in prison.
When asked if he was pleased with the outcome of this case, detective Ranfranz hesitated and is left with more questions than answers: “Good question. Is 27 years enough? It’s the kids I care about. Is that enough for what he did to the children? What’s enough for raping children? Will this make it stop?”
Broulik is currently locked up at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City, which is the state’s newest high-security prison. He is housed with 1,000 other adult men. At some point, he will likely be shipped to a federal prison in another state.
Atwal said the way to fix Broulik is to learn how to manage his behavior. “He doesn’t commit offenses when he’s being watched,” she said, noting treatment and proper supervision works.
“If they received the proper treatment, we wouldn’t have this problem,” Atwal said. “Treatment teaches them how to manage and control their behavior,” she added.
While in prison, Broulik says he wants to focus on sex offender treatment. More than anything, he wants to understand himself and why he has done what he has done in the past. He does not like the way he is and needs to learn to cope, manage and replace his behavior.
Asked to present his future plans to the court, Broulik wrote, “It’s a tough question to answer because the future is so far away. I hope I continue with programming. I hope I can find a job. I hope while I’m in prison I can learn a new trade or skill.”
And most agree that Broulik’s new trade or skill should involve something other than abusing and torturing innocent children.