MN Sex Offender Charged After Allegedly Planning Murder Plot
MINNEAPOLIS – A federal criminal complaint has been filed against an Owatonna sex offender for sending graphic threats detailing a murder plot against his former child sexual abuse victim.
According to court documents, in March 2021, the Upper Allen Township Police Department in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, began investigating 26-year-old Michael Kurkowski for allegedly exchanging sexually explicit images with a minor.
The investigation revealed that Kurkowski had sexually explicit images and videos of a minor and was aware that his victim was, at the time, a minor under the age of 18.
Kurkowski also admitted to traveling to Pennsylvania to find the minor and to try to continue a “relationship” after the minor tried to end the online communications with Kurkowski.
On April 14, 2021, Kurkowski was charged in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, with multiple felonies related to the sexual exploitation of the minor and was sentenced to about five months in prison followed by probation.
Kurkowski’s probation conditions included, the requirement to register as a sex offender, and not having any weapons.
According to court documents, in December 2021, law enforcement began investigating Kurkowski’s online communications and sexual exploitation of a minor in East Peoria, Illinois.
In January 2022, investigators with the East Peoria Police Department reviewed several messages from Kurkowski to the minor describing in graphic detail a plan to travel to Pennsylvania where Kurkowski would murder the parents of his former victim, rape his sister, and then kill her in front of his former victim.
EPPD also notified the Cedar Falls Police Department after the investigation revealed that Kurkowski was also engaging in the sexual exploitation of a second minor in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
According to court documents, on February 4, 2022, investigators with the Owatonna Police Department learned that Kurkowski had bought a Greyhound bus ticket and was currently en route to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the general location of Kurkowski’s former victim and his family.
FBI investigators found Kurkowski’s whereabouts and were able to track him to a bus stop in Toledo, Ohio, where authorities took Kurkowski into custody.
According to court documents, when he was arrested, Kurkowski had with him a bag containing among other things 16 heavy flex cuffs, electrical tape, a taser, a large knife, rubber gloves, and hooded facemasks.