Minnesota judge called ‘extremist’ for overturning $7.2M fraud conviction

A Republican senator in Minnesota is asking a choose a “true extremist” after she overturned a $7.2 million tax fraud conviction.

Abdifatah Yusuf and his spouse, Lul Ahmed, have been indicted in June 2024 and accused of stealing $7.2 million from the state’s Medicaid program whereas operating a house well being care enterprise. The Minnesota legal professional normal’s workplace stated the corporate had no workplace constructing and operated out of a mailbox “for years.”

The legal professional normal’s workplace stated Yusuf obtained Medicaid cash by billing for providers that weren’t supplied and for providers missing “any documentation,” and that he overbilled for providers.

Yusuf allegedly used the cash to fund a “lavish way of life,” which included procuring at luxurious shops corresponding to Coach, Michael Kors, Nike, Nordstrom and extra.

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Choose Sarah West overturned Abdifatah Yusuf’s sentence. (Minnesota Courts and Google Maps)

Yusuf transferred greater than $1 million from the enterprise account to his private account and in addition withdrew greater than $387,000 in money, the legal professional normal’s workplace stated.

A jury convicted Yusuf in August of six counts of aiding and abetting theft by deception over $35,000. Nonetheless, that call was overturned by Choose Sarah West in mid-November KARE.

In her choice, West wrote that prosecutors “relied closely on circumstantial proof,” including that the state didn’t rule out different doable “affordable inferences.”

The choose added that she was, nevertheless, “troubled by the best way fraud at Promise Well being was allowed to proceed.”

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Minnesota Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison arrives to talk on stage through the third day of the Democratic Nationwide Conference on the United Heart on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. His workplace has appealed West’s choice to overturn Yusuf’s sentence. (Getty Pictures)

Republican Senator Michael Holmstrom of Minnesota stated in an interview that West is a “actual extremist.”

“Justice reform is critical in Minnesota… This was not an excessive state of affairs,” Holmstrom advised Fox Information Digital. “That is simply how she works.”

“I feel she is a real extremist, that her ideology controls her courtroom and is damaging our justice system. Folks in Minnesota are questioning whether or not or not the justice system will be trusted. And with judges like this, I perceive why,” he added.

Holmstrom stated he observed that one of many sealed items of proof in Yusuf’s case contained a world cash order for an unnamed individual in an unknown nation. Holmstrom stated he has submitted a request to see the exhibit, but it surely has not but been granted.

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“I wish to know what occurred, and I feel Minnesotans actually need to know what their tax {dollars} are going to fund and the way these money transfers work,” he stated.

Holmstrom added that he was “outraged” when he discovered that West had overturned Yusuf’s conviction, arguing that she was “outdoors her authority” to make the choice.

Ben Walfoort, jury chairman in Yusuf’s case, stated the choice to convict was not sophisticated.

“It wasn’t a troublesome choice in any respect,” he stated, in line with KARE. “The deliberation doubtless lasted as much as 4 hours. Based mostly on the proof introduced by the state, there was no affordable doubt,” Walfoort stated. “I am shocked. I am shocked primarily based on all of the proof introduced to us and the clear guilt we have seen primarily based on stated proof.”

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Democratic Minnesota Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison throughout a press convention on June 3, 2020. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)

The Minnesota Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, led by Democrat Keith Ellison, has appealed West’s choice to overturn Yusuf’s sentence.

Minnesota has confronted fraud points, together with the Feeding Our Future program, which concerned lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in embezzled COVID-19 funds. The alleged fraud stems from Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Providers program, Feeding Our Future and different organizations.

President Donald Trump ended deportation safety for Somalis in Minnesota on November 21, claiming that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the individuals of that nice state and BILLIONS of {dollars} are lacking.”

His choice got here after a report from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative assume tank, alleged that thousands and thousands of {dollars} have been diverted to Al-Shabaab, a Somali terror group, in reference to the Feeding Our Future rip-off.

Fox Information Digital reached out to a consultant for West and Yusuf’s legal professional for remark.

Yusuf’s lawyer, Ian Birrell, stated West had made the precise choice, including that his consumer had been wrongly accused.

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“Choose West’s ruling confirms what we’ve got maintained from the start: our consumer, Mr. Yusuf, was wrongly accused and didn’t commit fraud or extortion,” he stated, KARE reported. “The Courtroom’s choice to grant acquittal on all fees displays the elemental precept that justice requires each equity and proof. We respect the Courtroom’s cautious consideration to the proof and the legislation.”