(DCNF)—A Hennepin County, Minnesota, judge set aside a jury’s guilty verdict in a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case Monday, leaving jurors shocked.
Hennepin County Judge Sarah West ruled that the jury erred when it found Abdifatah Yusuf guilty on fraud and racketeering charges, KARE 11 reported. Stunned jurors told the Minneapolis-area TV station they didn’t have much difficulty during deliberations.
“It was not a difficult decision whatsoever. The deliberation took probably four hours at most. Based off of the state’s evidence that was presented, it was beyond a reasonable doubt,” Ben Walfoort, the jury’s foreman, said.
“We didn’t take our job lightly,” another juror told KARE 11. “We went through a lot of evidence and discussed a lot, took our time, but we all came to an agreement pretty easily.”
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Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota touted Yusuf’s conviction in an Aug. 12 release.
“Stealing money meant for poor people’s healthcare and using it to buy luxury cars and designer clothes is as shameful and disgraceful as it gets,” Ellison said. “Minnesotans believe in helping our neighbors, but we have no patience for fraudsters like Abdifatah Yusuf who abuse that generosity to enrich themselves.”
Yusuf allegedly billed Minnesota’s Medicaid program for services he never performed, overbilled for other services, provided false documentation to back up the bills and provided kickbacks to “recipients” of the phony services.
Welfare fraud schemes in Minnesota have reportedly been used to fund al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia. President Donald Trump announced he would end “Temporary Protected Status” for Somalis in Minneapolis in response to the allegations.
West’s ruling claimed that prosecutors “relied heavily on circumstantial evidence” and failed to rule out “reasonable inferences” that pointed to innocence, KARE 11 reported.
“I am shocked. I’m shocked based off of all of the evidence that was presented to us and the obvious guilt that we saw based off of the said evidence,” Walfoort told KARE 11.
Since the jury initially found Yusuf guilty, prosecutors are able to appeal West’s ruling, according to KARE 11.
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