A Convicted Sex Offender Became the Public Face of Pine City Pride's History While Still Under Court Supervision. Nobody Asked Why.

Court records show Nathan Johnson was sentenced to ten years of supervised probation after a criminal-sexual-conduct conviction involving a minor, with restrictions on contact with minors, pornography, and internet use. Years later, with that supervision still active, the press presented him as a historian, writer, secretary, and advocate for East Central Minnesota Pride's public history effort. None of the coverage mentioned the conviction.

Nathan Lawrence Johnson was still under court supervision for that conviction when he resurfaced as the public voice of Pine City's Pride history. The coverage let him narrate the story; none of it noted what was in his file.

A Pine County District Court sentencing order in State of Minnesota v. Nathan Lawrence Johnson, case 58-CR-16-546, lists Johnson as convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct — victim 13 to 15, actor more than 48 months older — plus a conviction for furnishing tobacco to a minor. The court imposed 90 days in the Pine County Jail and ten years of supervised probation starting May 30, 2017, with a discharge date of May 30, 2027.

That is the fact East Central Minnesota Pride, Pine City officials, and every outlet that platformed Johnson skipped.

The sentencing order required sex-offender programming, no contact with the victim or the victim's family, no unsupervised contact with anyone under 18 without written permission from his agent, no pornographic material, and no internet use without approval.

Those conditions do not by themselves establish a probation violation — the order says "without approval," and no approval, grantor, or scope has been produced. Nor has anyone said whether ECMN Pride, public officials, sponsors, grant administrators, media outlets, or families were told he was under sex-offender supervision while publicly fronting Pride-related history work. That is a public-trust question and a child-safety question.

ECMN Pride is not a private club here. Its own materials and the press present it as a long-running rural Pride institution tied to public events, public land, state historical recognition, family attendance, and grant funding. The Star Tribune traced it to a 2005 picnic in Voyageur Park that grew into an event drawing thousands. The Advocate quoted organizers calling it the country's first rural Pride organization. With public money, public land, and public officials involved, it is not a private matter.

The questions: who knew, when, and what was done to protect the people who attended these events?

The 2016 case

Johnson's case went public in 2016. CBS Minnesota reported on June 10 that he faced two felony CSC counts and two tobacco counts tied to allegations involving a 15-year-old boy, attributed to the Pine County Sheriff's Office and the complaint.

The 2017 sentencing order lays out the result: a felony fourth-degree CSC conviction (victim 13-15, actor 48+ months older) and a misdemeanor tobacco conviction, with the other two counts dismissed and, under a stay of imposition, the CSC count to drop to a misdemeanor on successful probation completion. Ten years of DOC-supervised probation began May 30, 2017, discharge May 30, 2027, with sex-offender treatment, no victim contact, no unsupervised minor contact without written agent approval, no pornographic material, and no internet use without approval.

Those conditions sit directly against the roles he later held: historian, writer, secretary, public advocate, internet author.

Coming back into public view

In 2025, the Minnesota Reformer ran a commentary by Johnson — "Pine City Pride 20 years later" — calling the group's 2005 picnic "the first rural LGBTQ Pride event in the United States." His bio: historian, LGBTQ+ advocate, writer. No mention of the conviction.

In 2026, the Star Tribune profiled Pine City's new historical marker and called Johnson "a keeper of its history," describing his years-long push through the Minnesota Historical Society to get it approved. The $7,000 sign came from a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant. No mention of the conviction.

The Advocate identified him as ECMN Pride's secretary in its piece on the marker, quoting him on overlooked rural LGBTQ history. Out Front Magazine ran the same framing from the Advocate's reporting. Three outlets, three platforms, no mention of a conviction involving a child.

The issue is not whether a person with a record can rebuild a life. It is what happens when that person receives a microphone, a title, and public trust while still under court restrictions built to keep him away from minors, pornography, and unsupervised internet use.

Open questions follow: Did Johnson hold a board seat, planning role, media-contact role, or social-media/photography role while under supervision? Did he have access to minors, youth programming, family areas, volunteer rosters, registration systems, private messages, sponsor communications, or event-planning systems? Did his probation agent approve internet use tied to media work, commentary, or event promotion? Did ECMN Pride know about the conviction — and if so, when; if not, why was it not checked?

What ECMN Pride's response did not answer

Alpha News reported that ECMN Pride appeared to acknowledge concerns involving an unnamed former board member, saying that person was no longer on the board and held no leadership role. That statement carries almost no information: no name, no timeline, no description of the role, no date the group learned of the conviction, no mention of a background check, and nothing about what he had access to before leaving.

ECMN Pride's current contact page lists [name redacted] as chair, Natalie Goldman as vice chair, Paul Wilkens as treasurer, and Kari Murrell as vice treasurer, terms running into 2027-2029. Johnson is not on it — which shows he is gone now, not what he had access to before.

The statement does not say whether the organization has a child-safety policy, a sex-offender policy, or a conflict-of-interest policy, or whether sponsors, vendors, donors, or families were ever notified. As of publication, ECMN Pride had not answered these questions.

The marker vote

A second track involves public land, public funds, and a close city vote. The marker commemorates the 2005 launch of ECMN Pride in Pine City. The Advocate reported the Pine City Council approved the project on a tiebreaking vote cast by Mayor Kent Bombard, whose husband, Aaron Bombard, is described as ECMN Pride's president. Projected cost: $7,000, funded partly through the Minnesota Historical Society.

The mayor cast the deciding vote on a public project tied to an organization his own husband leads.

WCMP added detail: the council approved a memorandum of understanding with ECMN Pride to place the marker at Voyageur Park in a 3-2 vote, with ECMN Pride handling upkeep, contributing $500, and drawing just over $7,000 in state grant money. Aaron Bombard told WCMP the city itself put forward no funding.

None of that establishes a crime. It calls for the records. Minn. Stat. § 471.87 bars a public officer authorized to take part in a sale, lease, or contract in an official capacity from having a personal financial interest in it, absent an exception; a violation is a gross misdemeanor. The question is whether the mayor cast the deciding vote on a city action tied to an organization led by his spouse, and whether the city sought legal advice, required disclosure, or considered recusal first.

The records that would settle it: the April 2 council packet, minutes, and video; the MOU; city attorney communications; conflict disclosures; the Historical Society grant paperwork; invoices; vendor bids; and communications involving Kent Bombard, [name redacted], ECMN Pride, and the grant. Minn. Stat. § 471.88 carves out exceptions to the conflict rules that any review would have to rule out first.

A separate thread

A different question runs through the broader ECMN Pride event world. Publicly available adult-industry material ties the aliases Adam Divine and Anthony Divine to a person connected to that world, including material tying those names to Martina Marraccino / Martin Mayotte — among it public-masturbation and incest-themed content.

If that material is publicly accessible and the identities hold, the question is whether organizers, sponsors, or families were told before those individuals were platformed at family-branded community events. That is a disclosure and event-suitability question, distinct from Johnson's case: his is a documented criminal conviction involving a minor; this is about who knew what before people were placed in front of families.

Johnson completed the civic-rebuild version of this story that gets written often. He did so while carrying a felony conviction involving a minor and a decade of court-ordered supervision that three national and state outlets never mentioned while giving him a platform. ECMN Pride and Pine City officials owe the public specific answers rather than a vague statement about an unnamed former board member: what role he held and when, whether the organization knew about the conviction, whether he had internet-use approval covering his public-facing work, whether the organization has any child-safety policy, and whether the mayor sought legal advice before casting the deciding vote on a project tied to his husband's organization.

What is documented: the conviction, the supervision term running through 2027, and years of press coverage that omitted both. What is open: whether anyone around him checked. Nothing in the record indicates they did.

On July 15, 2026, Bombard announced on his official "Kent Bombard, Pine City Mayor" Facebook page that he will not seek re-election, citing family and time with his young daughter, and said he will serve out his term. The post also listed accomplishments in office: audits and bond rating, ordinance modernization, more than $750,000 in federal funding for wastewater-treatment ponds, and the 315 Building transfer.

Sources: Star Tribune, The Advocate, CBS Minnesota, Minnesota Reformer, Out Front Magazine, Alpha News, ECMN Pride contact page, WCMP, Minn. Stat. § 471.87, Office of the State Auditor, Minn. Stat. § 471.88, Minn. Stat. § 10A.07.