Hennepin County Judge tosses out jury’s guilty verdict in $7.2 million home healthcare fraud case

Jurors tell KARE 11 News their decision wasn’t difficult after seeing evidence of “obvious fraud” committed by Abdifatah Yusuf.

MINNEAPOLIS — At the August trial for Abdifatah Yusuf, the jury heard evidence that he ran his home healthcare company, Promise Health, out of a mailbox at a Central Avenue address where multiple other home healthcare companies were supposedly located. 

Yusuf and his wife Lul Ahmed were charged with stealing $7.2 million of taxpayer money through Medicaid overbilling in a personal care assistant (PCA) scam.

The couple allegedly spent tens of thousands of the fraud money on luxury items for themselves. 

“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,” jury foreperson Ben Walfoort told KARE 11 News.

Despite the jury swiftly convicting Yusuf, Judge Sarah West last week decided that they got it wrong, overturning the verdict and issuing a judgment of acquittal. 

Defense attorney Joe Tamburino, who is not affiliated with the case, reviewed the decision and analyzed it for KARE 11 News. He says Judge West ruled that the state’s case “relied heavily on circumstantial evidence,” and that she believed the state didn’t rule out other “reasonable inferences.”

“That in fact, there could have been other reasonable theories other than guilt in this case. That’s what it comes down to,” Tamburino said.

Despite the ruling, even Judge West wrote that she is “troubled by the manner in which fraud was able to be perpetuated at Promise Health.”

State Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee, says she’s now reviewing if any state laws need to be tightened.

“I was stunned. We want to strengthen state law so that we can get prosecutions out of these cases. Because clearly a jury thought he was guilty,” Robbins said.

Jurors from the case can’t believe the decision.

“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 said.

Another juror told KARE 11: “We didn’t take our job lightly. We went through a lot of evidence and discussed a lot, took our time, but we all came to an agreement pretty easily.”

The Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal on Monday. Prosecutors are rarely able to appeal an acquittal, but they can in this case since the judgment overturns the will of the jury.

Yusuf’s attorney Ian Birrell provided KARE 11 with this statement: “Judge West’s ruling affirms what we have maintained from the beginning: our client Mr. Yusuf was wrongfully accused and did not commit fraud or racketeering. The Court’s decision to enter judgments of acquittal on all charges reflects the fundamental principle that justice requires both fairness and proof. We appreciate the Court’s careful attention to the evidence and the law.”