MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has reversed a judge’s decision to acquit Abdifatah Abdulkadir Yusuf after a jury found him guilty in a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case. The October 26 ruling orders reinstatement of the jury’s six guilty verdicts. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office charged Yusuf in June 2024 over billing through his healthcare agency. A Hennepin County jury found him guilty in August 2025 of six counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle involving more than $35,000. Jurors also found aggravating sentencing factors, according to the attorney general’s office. Hennepin County Judge Sarah S. West subsequently entered judgments of acquittal. As described in the appellate opinion, the district court concluded that it was reasonable to infer Yusuf’s brother, Mohamed, carried out the fraud without Yusuf’s knowledge or assistance. The state appealed. The three-judge appellate panel disagreed. Its nonprecedential opinion, written by Judge Renee L. Worke, concluded that the combined evidence supported Yusuf’s knowledge and intentional assistance. The court cited his role in the business, payments he signed, his failure to disclose his brother’s management role, and the financial benefit he received. FOX 9’s account of the trial record described Promise Health Service LLC as a provider founded in 2018. Investigators found it used a mailbox rather than a physical office at its registered Minneapolis address. The original racketeering count was dismissed before the jury considered the six theft counts. According to the attorney general’s office, the fraud included billing for care that was not delivered, false or missing documentation, overbilling and recipient kickbacks. Investigators traced more than $1 million from the business to Yusuf personally and more than $387,000 in cash withdrawals. The attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. The attorney general’s office prosecuted the case and challenged the acquittals. The appeals court’s decision does not impose a prison term. It reverses the acquittals and sends the case back for reinstatement of the verdicts. The ruling itself provides no sentencing date. The appeal is A25-2003; the Hennepin County District Court case is 27-CR-24-13734. The full 18-page opinion is linked in the sources below. File photo: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Photo: Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune.