St. Cloud Man Has Assault Convictions Partially Overturned

(KNSI) — A St. Cloud man who pleaded guilty to first and second degree assault stemming from a 2020 case where he threatened a Red Carpet Nightclub employee with a knife has had part of his conviction reversed.

According to court documents, in March 2020, police heard yelling coming from the area near the bar and found a man had been tackled to the ground. Security personnel said they were kicking Abdullahi Aden Ibrahim out of the place and called for another employee to help. Ibrahim was uncooperative and repeatedly asked why he had to leave before pulling the knife and taunting the employee to come outside. Someone who witnessed the exchange pushed a door onto Ibrahim, which caused him to drop the knife, so they grabbed it and held Ibrahim down until help arrived. In that case, he was charged with second degree felony assault.

Ibrahim is also accused in a separate stabbing in December of 2019 and charged with first and second degree assault. In that case, police say he stabbed someone multiple times after the two of them got into a verbal argument before it escalated into a physical fight, and Ibrahim allegedly pulled a knife.

He pled guilty in August of 2021 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison with credit for 262 days served. Ibrahim petitioned the court to vacate his convictions as the pleas were not accurate, the court applied the wrong plea withdrawal standard to a pre-sentence request, and failed to exercise its discretion to consider a sentence less than 124 months. That petition was denied with the judge saying the pleas were accurate.

Ibrahim’s attorneys went to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, who ruled Tuesday that the factual basis for the guilty plea for first degree assault was inaccurate, so that part of his conviction has been partially reversed and will be sent back down to a lower court. There, Ibrahim can withdrawl his guilty plea to that charge. Meanwhile, the court ruled his guilty plea for second degree assault was accurate and that the charge had been partially upheld. If he withdraws his guilty plea for first degree assault, the district court “shall vacate his conviction” for that offense.

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