Update: 4:35 PM – The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services tells Flag Family News Cory Pedersen has accepted a new position as Senior Advisor for Integrated Service Continuums.
ND HHS said he will help teams from across the department to identify gaps in services and help create and carry out solutions.
Flag Family News asked a Health and Human Services spokesperson why Interim Commissioner Pat Traynor allowed Pedersen to continue working with the department rather than firing him. They didn’t immediately respond.
BISMARCK, N.D. – The North Dakota Child and Family Services director was sentenced to one year of probation after being found guilty of stalking.
Cory Pedersen also received a 90-day suspended sentence.
He tried to contact his ex-girlfriend more than 120 times between July and October 2024. She filed a temporary domestic violence protection order and Pedersen violated it the next day by being within 100 feet of her workplace.
Child and Family Services oversees several state programs such as child protective services, adoption and kinship care.
Flag Family News asked Governor Kelly Armstrong’s Communications Director Mike Nowatzki if Armstrong has asked Pedersen to resign.
Nowatzki called the situation “an agency-level personnel matter” and forwarded our question onto the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.
