BREAKING NEWS: OWATONNA SEX OFFENDER FACES FEDERAL CHARGE IN MURDER PLOT

A sex offender from Owatonna has been charged in federal court with threatening to carry out a murder plot – after he was arrested while en route to the area with flex cuffs, a taser, a large knife, rubber gloves and hooded facemasks.
Michael Lee Kurkowski, 26, has been charged with one count of threatening interstate communication by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He’s accused of sending sexually explicit text messages to a minor, which allegedly described in graphic detail a plan to travel to Pennsylvania, where Kurkowski would murder the parents of another young boy he sexually exploited, rape his sister, then kill her in front of the former victim.
He made his first court appearance Monday in Ohio. A judge ordered him be detained temporarily and removed to Minnesota, where he will make an initial appearance at a later date.
Owatonna Police joined in this investigation with the FBI and other local law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa.
See next week’s Steele County Times for further details about this story.