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Lawmakers and the legal community are raising questions after a Minnesota judge took the uncommon step of overturning a unanimous jury verdict in a massive $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case, a move experts say is rarely seen in white-collar prosecutions.
The ruling, handed down late last month by Hennepin County Judge Sarah West, comes as Minnesota is engulfed in a series of major welfare and human services fraud scandals that have drawn national attention and shaken confidence in the state’s oversight systems.
West’s decision has triggered broader doubts about Minnesota’s resolve to prosecute white-collar and welfare fraud at a time when billions in public funds could be vulnerable.
JaneAnne Murray, a University of Minnesota law professor who studies criminal procedure, said she was surprised by the decision.
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“It is highly unusual for a judge to reject a jury’s verdict in any case, much less a white-collar one, where issues of intent will almost always be circumstantial,” Murray told Fox News Digital.
Minnesota’s circumstantial-evidence standard, she noted, is among the strictest in the country and requires prosecutors to “exclude any reasonable hypothesis of innocence.”
Legal experts say Minnesota’s unusually stringent rule gives judges broader authority to vacate convictions if prosecutors cannot rule out every reasonable alternative explanation for the defendant’s conduct. The Minnesota Supreme Court is reviewing the decades-old standard, but Murray said West was applying the law as it stands today.
“The judge in the Medicaid fraud case was applying the current law,” Murray said.
Until now, West had maintained a low profile on the bench with no prior rulings that attracted substantial controversy. But last month’s decision was derided by Republican Minnesota Sen. Michael Holmstrom, who labeled her a “true extremist.”
West, a former public defender appointed to the bench in 2018 by Gov. Mark Dayton, previously handled juvenile and child protection cases in Hennepin County. She also held leadership roles in the Hennepin County Bar Foundation, which funds legal aid and community justice programs.
She presided over the prosecution of Abdifatah Yusuf, found guilty by a jury of six counts of aiding and abetting theft after he and his wife were accused of stealing $7.2 million from the state’s Medicaid program while running a home healthcare business, according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.
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Prosecutors said the business lacked a real office, operated “for years out of a mailbox” and that Yusuf allegedly used the money to fund a “lavish lifestyle” that included shopping sprees at luxury retailers such as Coach, Canada Goose, Michael Kors, Nike and Nordstrom.
But West tossed the conviction, ruling that the state’s case relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and failed to eliminate other reasonable inferences about Yusuf’s personal involvement in the billing scheme.
“There is a reasonable, rational inference that Mr. Yusuf was the owner … but that his brother, Mohamed Yusuf, was committing the fraud … without Mr. Yusuf’s knowledge or involvement,” West wrote in her ruling.
She said the scale and nature of the fraud was “of great concern” but ruled the state failed to prove Yusuf knowingly participated in it.
Andy McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney and Fox News contributor, said the ruling veered far beyond what trial judges are normally permitted to do, underscoring how exceptional the move was.
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“It is highly unusual for a judge to overturn a jury verdict in a criminal case,” McCarthy told Fox News Digital, noting that a judge who believes the evidence is legally insufficient is supposed to stop the case before it ever reaches the jury.
McCarthy said the reported rationale for vacating the verdict “seems untenable,” arguing circumstantial evidence is routinely strong enough to sustain convictions.
“The fact that a case is circumstantial — meaning there is no central witness who saw the crime — is not a reason to overturn it,” he said. “Very often, circumstantial cases are much stronger than cases that rise or fall on the testimony of witnesses of dubious credibility.”
He added that judges are required to instruct jurors to view evidence as a whole rather than in isolation.
“The judge is only permitted to vacate a guilty verdict if it is obviously irrational and against the full weight of the evidence,” McCarthy said.
Because West waited until after deliberations to overturn the verdict, McCarthy said the state may still have the ability to appeal, a procedural opening that does not exist when a judge tosses a case before the jury deliberates.
Ben Walfoort, the jury foreperson, told KARE he was “shocked” by West’s decision and said the jury’s conclusion “was not a difficult decision whatsoever.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed an appeal.
The decision has also triggered a political fight, with Holmstrom sending a formal letter to Judge West demanding she unseal key exhibits — and the entire case record — arguing that the public “must know what is happening in their courts and in their welfare programs.”
Holmstrom called the ruling “unprecedented” and said locking away documents produced in open court violates Minnesota’s tradition of transparency.
Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller and Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
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