‘Pure Evil’: Florida Pushes to Execute Accused Child Rapist as State Challenges Supreme Court Precedent

While announcing that Florida will seek the death penalty for a 36-year-old nanny indicted for raping multiple young children, including a three-year-old, Attorney General James Uthmeier called on the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to reverse a decades-old decision declaring it unconstitutional to execute child rapists.

Uthmeier stressed during a Brooksville press conference that Nathan Holmberg, accused of videoing the rape of five children under 12 in Hernando County — with more rapes suspected statewide — is an example of why the U.S. Supreme Court needs to reconsider the 2008 precedent at issue.

“[This is] nothing more than pure evil,” Uthmeier said, imploring Floridians who have information on Holmberg to contact his office. “Crimes like this against young children, where you take their innocence, you take their childhood away from them, these horrific acts deserve the ultimate form of justice.”

Holmberg was arrested on Oct. 20 after a “Good Samaritan” notified the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office that he had child pornography on his phone, according to county Sheriff Al Nienhuis. What authorities found was “one of the most heinous investigations,” Rita Peters — special counsel to the attorney general who’s worked in the sex crimes unit for more than 25 years — had ever seen.

Holmberg was indicted Monday by a Hernando grand jury on seven counts of sexual battery of a child under 12 years old, four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12 years old, three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct, and 10 counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child between December 2024 and Oct. 20, 2025 — the date he was arrested.

A nanny, babysitter, and worker at the local YMCA, Holmberg was also charged with 83 counts of possession of child pornography. He’s lived in Duval, Pasco, Pinellas, and Hernando counties over the past decade.

According to the partially redacted grand jury indictment, Holmberg took multiple videos of himself raping and coercing young children into sexual acts. The document paints a horrific picture of children between 3 and 10 years old wearing Jurassic Park, Minecraft, or Hello Kitty clothing as Holmberg molests them.

‘This is not an individual that can be rehabilitated’
Florida in 2023 passed landmark legislation expanding the state’s death penalty to include suspects who rape children younger than 12. It was the first law of its kind after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing child rapists was unconstitutional if the victim wasn’t killed.

That case, called Kennedy v. Louisiana, has been viewed as a massive roadblock for pro-death penalty advocates like Uthmeier, who’s made it his mission as attorney general to argue for severe penalties for child predators and to sue companies like Roblox and Snapchat for allegedly failing to prevent child molesters from communicating with kids.

“We believe that today’s Supreme Court should reevaluate and reinterpret the law to allow this form of justice. You have somebody that raped and sexually abused a three-year-old and filmed it. The evidence shows hundreds of files, photos, and videos of other child pornographic and abuse content,” Uthmeier said.

“Again, this is not an individual that can be rehabilitated, this is someone that needs to face the ultimate form of justice.”

Uthmeier in September led 15 states in asking U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to co-sign various state efforts to execute child rapists. Weeks after Uthmeier emailed his letter to Bondi, she joined President Donald Trump to announce planned expansions of the death penalty.

But these efforts haven’t been met with unanimous support. Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, called Uthmeier’s efforts to overturn Kennedy v. Louisiana “unusual” and even harmful.

“They have lost sight of the fact that by seeking the death penalty in [child rape] cases, all they have accomplished is a guarantee for years and years of extensive and expensive litigation, an ongoing infliction of trauma to living child victims, and decades of uncertainty on appeal,” she said in a statement to the Phoenix. “The current punishment for these horrific allegations is already … a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

“It is also unusual for the attorney general himself to prosecute cases and use the resources of his office to do so when there is already a State Attorney’s Office with the necessary experience and funding to handle these types of complex prosecutions,” she added.

Florida’s child rape statute isn’t the only example of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ massive push to expand the death penalty. In 2023, DeSantis signed a law lowering the threshold for death penalty sentencing from a unanimous jury decision to an 8-4 supermajority. This year, he signed off on human trafficking as another crime worthy of execution and expanded the aggravated factors needed to recommend a death sentence.

Similarly, DeSantis has shattered Florida’s long-standing one-year record of eight executions set in 1984: in 2025 so far, he’s already scheduled 18 executions and conducted 15.