St. Paul cabdriver sentenced in fondling incident

He will spend four months in jail and must register as a predatory offender for 20 years.

By LORA PABST, Star Tribune

August 31, 2011 at 2:52AM
Abdikadir Yusef Mohamed
Abdikadir Yusef Mohamed (Dml -/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

A former cabdriver who was convicted of sexually touching a female passenger will spend four months in jail and be required to register as a predatory offender for 20 years.

Abdikadir Yusef Mohamed, 24, of St. Paul, was also sentenced Tuesday to 10 years of probation. If he doesn't comply with the terms of probation, he could face two years in prison.

A Ramsey County jury found Mohamed guilty in June of felony fourth-degree and gross misdemeanor fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct for the incident, which occurred during a cab ride last December. Mohamed was acquitted of a felony kidnapping charge.

In a letter to District Judge Gail Chang Bohr, the 27-year-old victim said she has had nightmares since the incident and has quit her job and school.

"I would relive that night and attack over and over," the victim wrote in the letter.

After seeing a therapist, she wrote that she is "working on somehow making this a positive in my life."

The victim testified during trial that she got into a minivan cab driven by Mohamed after getting off work at Barrio in downtown St. Paul about 3:20 a.m. on Dec. 5. She said Mohamed told her to come to the front seat when she asked if she could smoke. When she did, he reached up her skirt and touched her genital area. She said she asked to be let out of the locked cab and tried to move to the back seat but Mohamed wouldn't let her.

Instead, he touched her two more times and made comments about oral sex and asked to "warm her up" for her boyfriend. The woman called police about 30 hours later to report the assault.

During testimony, Mohamed insisted that he never touched or assaulted the woman.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Sarah Cory said the jury's verdict showed that jurors believed the victim. She asked Bohr to sentence Mohamed to one year in jail.

Scott Strouts, Mohamed's attorney, said his client is allowed to assert his innocence. He said Mohamed was a low risk to reoffend and asked Bohr for no jail time.

"I have young kids," Mohamed told Bohr through an interpreter. "I lost my job because of this. It affected me and my family."

Bohr ordered Mohamed to attend sex offender treatment and not to have contact with minors, other than his children.

Lora Pabst • 612-916-7212 Twitter: @lorapabst

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LORA PABST, Star Tribune