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Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Minneapolis man in connection with a string of sexual assaults including of a 15-year-old girl. In two of the cases, Abdimahat Bille Mohamed, 28, avoided prison as part of a recent plea deal with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and allegedly raped his latest victim in September while on probation.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi blamed Minnesota’s “left-wing soft-on-crime policies” for putting innocent people at risk from a “Somali national.” In response, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the Justice Department news release is a “clear attempt to politicize a sexual assault prosecution to inflict further harm on our entire Somali community.”
On May 30, 2024, Minneapolis police arrested Mohamed at his home near downtown for the rape of a woman he met on Snapchat. The victim’s sister, who was also in the apartment, had called 911. The victim told paramedics that Mohamed had raped and strangled her and threatened to kill her sister.
Hennepin County prosecutors charged Mohamed the next day. Several months later, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension linked Mohamed’s DNA to the 2017 kidnapping and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in Minneapolis. In October 2024, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Mohamed separately in the earlier case.
In April, Mohamed pleaded guilty to felony charges of criminal sexual conduct in both cases, but he did not go to prison.
Following the terms of Mohamed’s plea deal, Judge Juan Hoyos gave Mohamed five years of probation for the rape of the 15-year-old and a stayed sentence of 14 months in the other case. Hennepin County prosecutors agreed not to charge Mohamed in a May 2018 sexual assault of which he was suspected.
The case came to the attention of the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office after Hennepin County prosecutors charged Mohamed on Monday in connection with a third sexual assault.
While on probation for the rape of the 15-year-old girl, Mohamed met a Mankato woman on Snapchat in mid-September and picked her up at her home. According to court documents, he allegedly took her to a hotel in Bloomington, where he held her against her will for six days and repeatedly raped her.
A federal complaint charges Mohamed with two counts, the kidnapping of the Mankato woman and the kidnapping of the teen girl. Mohamed faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years and up to life in prison, federal prosecutors said. Investigators recovered DNA evidence linking Mohamed to most of the crimes, according to the complaint. The FBI is also investigating him for additional sex crimes.
While Mohamed is charged with only two counts, the federal complaint also details the May 2024 rape for which Mohamed pleaded guilty in state court as well as two other alleged assaults of adult victims in 2018 that Mohamed met through Snapchat and Instagram.
In her statement Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who is not running for re-election, said the state’s case against Mohamed was “substantially weakened” and county prosecutors “could not get the prison sentence we wanted” because of the “loss of critical witnesses.” But she noted that her team was still able to secure two felony convictions.
“The current federal administration is more adept at pardons for violent insurrectionists and drug traffickers than prosecutions,” Moriarty added. “If they intend to start caring about public safety and victims, we recommend they end their coverup of pedophiles and those who protect them.”
The Justice Department typically does not publicize the national origin of defendants in non-immigration cases. While prosecutors filed these charges amid a threatened immigration crackdown targeting Minnesota’s Somali community, this prosecution is not part of that enforcement effort.
Mohamed, who is being held in the Hennepin County Jail without bond, is not an American citizen but is living in the U.S. as a legal permanent resident.
The government has the option of revoking Mohamed’s green card because of his state felony convictions, but federal authorities have not indicated if they plan to deport him.
A 24-hour statewide sexual violence and domestic violence hotline is available in Minnesota. You can call Minnesota Day One at (866) 223-1111 or text (612) 399-9995.
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