Jury Convicts Man for Role in Abducting, Raping Woman in St. Cloud

(KNSI) – The second of three men accused of taking a woman off a street in St. Cloud and raping her has been convicted. A Stearns County jury found Abdirahin Omar Ali guilty of kidnapping and three counts of first-degree Criminal Sexual Conduct.

According to the county attorney’s office, the jury also found the 23-year-old committed multiple aggravating factors, including committing the crime as a group of three or more people, threatening to kill the victim, and multiple forms of sexual assault. Ali is scheduled to be sentenced on December 17th.

Stearns County Jail-Mohamed Hassan Abdi

According to the criminal complaint, on October 18th, 2020, Ali, Mohamed Hassan Abdi and Sahal Abdi Hassan grabbed a woman walking in the 700-block of West St. Germain Street in St. Cloud and forced her into a car. The three are accused of sexually assaulting her as they drove around. Investigators say the three men stopped at Haws Park, where the woman was raped. She told police she was forced back into the car and sexually assaulted again.

The woman says at one point, she was able to get out of the car, found a house and knocked on the door for help. According to the complaint, a sexual assault examination was done at the hospital and showed DNA evidence linking the three men to the assault.

According to prosecutors, after the verdict against Ali, Abdi waived his right to a trial by jury and stipulated a significant amount of the state’s evidence presented during the jury trial. Abdi will have his case heard in front of the same judge who presided over Ali’s trial. Adbi’s trial will begin on Friday with four remaining witnesses for the state.

Earlier this year, Hassan pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct for his role in the rape. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.