Coon Rapids Theft Suspect: ‘You Can’t Touch Me’

Mohamud has eleven prior criminal convictions in Minnesota since 2013, including gross misdemeanors for theft and counterfeiting currency, and three misdemeanors for theft and two for false information to police.

Abdirahman Abdullahi Mohamud

The day before Halloween, Abdirahman Abdullahi Mohamud filled up his cart with merchandise totaling nearly $1,000 at a Coon Rapids home improvement store and casually strolled out the door making no attempt to pay for the items. When an employee tried to stop him, he said, “you can’t touch me,” and continued to leave into the parking lot, according to a criminal complaint filed last week.

The complaint is just one of two filed last week in Anoka County charging Mohamud, 24, by warrant with felony theft, both involving the same retailer. Mohamud made the comment to the employee in the latest incident just before noon on Oct. 30, when he placed an electric air compressor, a kitchen faucet and other items valued at $986 in his cart and left the store. 

The other complaint details a similar incident taking place at the same location on Oct. 1, just after 9:30 a.m. in which Mohamud is accused of placing several DeWalt tools worth $1,444 in his cart and making no attempt to pay for them. Instead, he pushed the cart toward the parking lot leaving through the lumber department doors. An employee also tried to stop Mohamud in that incident, but he pushed past her and continued to push the cart away into the parking lot.

Employees later told investigators that Mohamud was “well known” to them due to past theft incidents, the complaints said. Mohamud was ultimately identified by police through surveillance video at the store which they compared to Mohamud’s driver’s license photo and prior arrest photos located in the state’s database.

Mohamud has eleven prior criminal convictions in Minnesota since 2013, including gross misdemeanors for theft and counterfeiting currency, and three misdemeanors for theft and two for false information to police. The other convictions include disruptive intoxication and a handful of traffic violations. 

Mohamud also has an open Hennepin County felony narcotics case that has been pending since 2015. In that case, Mohamud was given a stay of adjudication (deferred prosecution) and placed into a diversion program and released on unsupervised monitoring without conviction by Judge Pamela G. Alexander, according to court records. Several probation violation reports have been filed against Mohamud in that case and he has failed to appear at follow up hearings five times, triggering several warrants for his arrest since 2015.

Mohamud’s most recent of the eleven convictions was on Oct. 17 in Hennepin County where he faced charges of gross misdemeanor financial transaction card fraud and misdemeanor theft, a case that was originally charged in May 2018. Mohamud failed to show up three times for scheduled hearings in the case and warrants were issued for his arrest after each failure to appear. Mohamud was finally arrested on Oct. 15 and pleaded guilty two days later to only the misdemeanor theft charge. The higher charge of financial card fraud was dismissed by Judge Jacqueline M. Regis. Mohamud was sentenced to 30 days in jail and given credit for 30 days already served and ordered released from custody.

In a puzzling turn, court records show that a Hennepin County probation violation was triggered on the 2015 narcotics case the next day, on Oct. 18, a day after Mohamud had been ordered released from custody in Hennepin County. A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest.

Mohamud, whose address on the two new Anoka County warrants is listed on the 2900 block of Knox Avenue North in Minneapolis, has been charged in those cases with one felony count each of theft involving amounts under $1,000 in one case, and under $5,000 in the other case. The complaints state that the penalty if convicted is up to 5 years in prison on each count. However, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Grid presumes stayed sentences on that level of crime for persons, like Mohamud, who have no prior felony convictions, resulting in a negligible criminal history score for sentencing calculation purposes. 

Mohamud is currently wanted on all three warrants and his whereabouts are unknown.

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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota.

Crime Watch MN

Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.