Abdifatah Yusuf was the owner and operator of Promise Health Services, a Medicaid-funded home healthcare provider. Over several years, his company charged the state of Minnesota millions of dollars for so-called services that were poorly documented, implausibly staffed, or never even provided at all. In return, Yusuf benefited from Medicaid funds flowing in while he lived a life of luxury.
Investigators concluded that the business itself largely existed on paper.
As a result, the state investigated Yusuf and his firm and charged him with multiple felony counts of theft by swindle. The case went to jury trial, where a jury of Yusuf’s peers heard testimony, reviewed financial records, assessed the credibility of witnesses and information, and reached a unanimous verdict – guilty.
The jury found Yusuf guilty of bilking the federal Medicaid program out of over $7.2 million. Minnesota’s leftist attorney general, Keith Ellison, proudly took credit for the conviction at the time, saying in a statement that, “A jury found Yusuf guilty of six counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle (over $35,000). The jury also found multiple aggravating factors existed to support an upward departure from the Minnesota sentencing guidelines. Yusuf will be sentenced before the Honorable Sarah S. West at a later date to be set by the Court.”
Ahhh. Judge Sarah West. Let’s get to know her through this case.
West presided over Yusuf’s trial. She allowed the case to go to the jury, which is an implicit acknowledgment that the evidence as presented prior to trial met the legal threshold for conviction.
But only after the jury returned a guilty verdict did she intervene on the matter of punishment, setting aside the jury’s decision and entering her own judgment of acquittal. She let Yusuf off.
Her widely criticized rationale relied upon Minnesota’s circumstantial-evidence standard, which required that such evidence must exclude all reasonable, rational hypotheses inconsistent with guilt. In theory, this is supposed to provide a safeguard against speculation. But in this case and in the real world, West transformed it into an impossible demand for the prosecution.
The prosecution had already shown the court that Yusuf owned and controlled the company. No one disputed this. It showed he enrolled his firm in Medicaid and certified compliance. It showed Yusuf maintained financial control over the firm’s accounts. It showed that fraudulent billing occurred in large amounts and followed a pattern over time. And the prosecution showed that Medicaid funds were diverted to personal use.
While West never disputed these facts, and she never claimed that fraud did not happen, she ruled that the state had not proven that Yusuf himself, as opposed to some unnamed associate or relative, knowingly orchestrated the scheme.
The bottom line is that the judge in the case decided that the owner and day-to-day management executive of his own firm could not be held to account for what his firm did. Just because he ran the firm doesn’t mean he knows what it was doing is her logic. Pathetic.
By this standard, it would seem the only way to get a just sentence from this judge in this case would be an open admission of guilt on the part of Yusuf. So West overrode the jury and its decision and decided to absolve the person most responsible.
The collapse of the Promise Health Services Medicaid fraud prosecution was not the result of new evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, or a wrongful conviction uncovered by sober reflection. It was the product of judicial intervention.
🚨 BREAKING: Multiple corrupt Minnesota judges are under fire for dismissing a FLURRY of recent Somali fraud cases
– Judge Sarah West: Abdifatah Yusuf
– Judge Amber Brennan: Yusuf’s wife Lul Ahmed
– Judge Hilary Caligiuri: co-defendant Abdiweli MohamudMILLIONS of dollars… pic.twitter.com/R1B71A1iAo
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 28, 2025
But wait! There’s more.
Meet Judge Amber Brennan. She’s the one who presided over the case against Lul Ahmed, Yusuf’s wife, and alleged co-participant in the scheme. Brennan dismissed charges against Ahmed on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Keep in mind that when a judge dismisses charges prior to trial, it is typically to protect defendants against baseless prosecution, not to make decisions on the sufficiency of evidence. That’s what the trial is for — to present to the court the actual evidence and achieve a fair hearing.
In complex fraud cases, the full picture rarely emerges until testimony is heard, documents are put into proper context, and witnesses are heard and then cross-examined. By terminating the case early, Brennan ensured that no jury would ever hear the evidence.
We’re not done here.
You have to meet Hilary Caligiuri, who dismissed charges against co-defendant Abdiweli Mohamud.
Prosecutors charged Mohamud with one count of racketeering and six counts of felony aiding and abetting theft by swindle. Mohamud owned Minnesota Home Health Care LLC, but he allowed Abdirashid Said, a federally excluded provider, to control the company. Under Mohamud’s ownership, Minnesota Home billed over $300,000 in personal care assistant services that were not documented or fraudulently documented and over $200,000 for services that were not properly supervised by a qualified professional. In total, Minnesota Home received over $1.8 million in Medicaid funds for services that were ineligible for payment.
Details on Mohamud’s case are sparse, but the pattern is clear. Two judges prevented cases from going to trial, and one judge disregarded a jury’s guilty verdict after trial when it came to sentencing.
Three Minnesota judges followed a similar pattern, and the net result for Somalis charged with corruption was a free pass.
In fraud cases, the victim is the one whose money was stolen from them. In cases of Medicaid and Medicare fraud, the victim is the federal taxpayer – you and me.
The outrage over these cases is not simply that the fraud happened; it’s that when a judge had the chance to deliver justice, the judiciary itself stepped in and prevented that.
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