Experts question Minnesota judge’s decision to vacate jury verdict in fraud case

Lawmakers and the legal community are raising questions after a Minnesota judge took the unusual 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 lawsuits.

The ruling, issued last month by Hennepin County Judge Sarah West, comes as Minnesota is mired in a series of major welfare and social services fraud scandals that have attracted national attention and shaken confidence in the state’s oversight systems.

West’s decision has raised broader doubts about Minnesota’s resolve to pursue white-collar and welfare fraud at a time when billions in state funds could be vulnerable.

JaneAnne Murray, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who studies criminal procedure, said she was surprised by the decision.

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Judge Sarah West, right, is facing scrutiny after overturning a unanimous jury verdict in a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case. At left, a view of downtown Minneapolis, December 4, 2025. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images; Hennepin County Courts)

“It is very unusual for a judge to throw out a jury’s verdict in any case, let alone in a white-collar verdict, where questions of intent will almost always be circumstantial,” Murray told Fox News Digital.

Minnesota’s circumstantial proof standards, she pointed out, are among the strictest in the country and require prosecutors to “exclude any reasonable hypothesis of innocence.”

Legal experts say Minnesota’s unusually strict rule gives judges broader authority to overturn convictions if prosecutors cannot rule out any other reasonable explanation for the defendant’s conduct. The Minnesota Supreme Court is reviewing the decades-old standard, but Murray said West is applying the law as it exists today.

“The judge in the Medicaid fraud case was applying current law,” Murray said.

Until now, West had kept a low profile on the bench, with no previous decisions sparking significant controversy. But last month’s decision was ridiculed by Minnesota Republican Sen. Michael Holmstrom, who called it “truly extremist.”

West, a former public defender appointed to the bench in 2018 by Gov. Mark Dayton, previously handled juvenile and child welfare cases in Hennepin County. She also held leadership positions with the Hennepin County Bar Foundation, which funds legal aid and community justice programs.

She presided over the prosecution of Abdifatah Yusuf, who was convicted by a jury of six counts of complicity to theft after he and his wife were accused of stealing $7.2 million from the state’s Medicaid program while running a home health care business, according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

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Prosecutors said the company had no 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 dismissed the convictionruling that the State’s case relied largely on circumstantial evidence and failed to eliminate other reasonable inferences regarding Yusuf’s personal involvement in the billing scheme.

“There is a reasonable and rational inference that Mr. Yusuf was the owner… but that his brother, Mohamed Yusuf, was committing the fraud… without or without Mr. Yusuf’s knowledge,” West wrote in his ruling.

She said the scale and nature of the fraud was “very concerning” but ruled the state had failed to prove Yusuf knowingly participated in it.

Andy McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney and Fox News contributor, said the decision went far beyond what trial judges are normally allowed to do, emphasizing how exceptional the decision was.

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A cyclist rides through downtown Minneapolis during an evening snowstorm as traffic moves along N. 1st Avenue. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)

“It is very unusual for a judge to overturn a decision jury verdict in criminal case” McCarthy told Fox News Digital, pointing out that a judge who finds the evidence legally insufficient is supposed to stop the case before it reaches the jury.

McCarthy said the reasons given for overturning the verdict “seem untenable,” arguing that circumstantial evidence is generally strong enough to support convictions.

“The fact that a case is circumstantial — that is, 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 rely on the testimony of witnesses of questionable credibility.”

He added that judges are required to ask jurors to consider the evidence as a whole rather than in isolation.

“The judge is only allowed to overturn a guilty verdict if it is manifestly irrational and contrary to the totality of the evidence,” McCarthy said.

Because West waited until deliberations were over to overturn the verdict, McCarthy said the state might still have the opportunity to appeal, a procedural opening that doesn’t exist when a judge throws out a case before the jury deliberates.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed an appeal. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Ben Walfoort, the jury foreman, told KARE he was “shocked” by West’s decision and said the jury’s conclusion “was not a difficult decision at all.”

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed an appeal.

The decision also sparked a political fight, with Holmstrom sending an official letter to Judge West demanding that she unseal key exhibits – and the entire case file – arguing that the public “needs to know what is happening in their courts and in their welfare programs.”

Holmstrom called the decision “unprecedented” and said withholding documents produced in open court violates Minnesota’s tradition of transparency.

Andrew Mark Miller and Adam Sabes of Fox News contributed to this report.