A Hennepin County, Minnesota, judge set aside a jury’s guilty verdict in a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case Monday, leaving jurors shocked.

Hennepin County Judge Sarah West ruled that the jury erred when it found Abdifatah Yusuf guilty on fraud and racketeering charges, KARE 11 reported. Stunned jurors told the Minneapolis-area TV station they didn’t have much difficulty during deliberations.

“It was not a difficult decision whatsoever. The deliberation took probably four hours at most.  Based off of the state’s evidence that was presented, it was beyond a reasonable doubt,” Ben Walfoort, the jury’s foreman, said.

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Yusuf allegedly billed Minnesota’s Medicaid program for services he never performed, overbilled for other services, provided false documentation to back up the bills and provided kickbacks to “recipients” of the phony services.

Welfare fraud schemes in Minnesota have reportedly been used to fund al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate {snip}

West’s ruling claimed that prosecutors “relied heavily on circumstantial evidence” and failed to rule out “reasonable inferences” that pointed to innocence, KARE 11 reported.

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