A St. Paul cabdriver fondled and detained a female fare early Sunday, according to prosecutors who charged him Friday with kidnapping and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Abdikadir Yusef Mohamed, 23, picked up the passenger — a bartender working in St. Paul's Lowertown — and locked her in his cab as he touched her and suggested they have sex, according to the criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.
"I know what you American girls want. Let's go to a parking lot somewhere," he said to her, according to the complaint.
Mohamed's family said the father and husband works hard and could not have committed the alleged crime.
Mohamed made his initial court appearance Friday and remained at the Ramsey County Jail.
According to the complaint:
The 26-year-old bartender called Yellow Cab for a ride about 3:20 a.m. Sunday, after her shift. When she left the restaurant, she saw a cab waiting on the corner.
The cab — a red or maroon minivan with a featherlike logo on the side — pulled up and the bartender got in through a back door.
She asked the driver if she could smoke. He said sure, as long as she sat in the front passenger seat next to him.
She moved forward and told the cabbie to take her to a friend's home at West Seventh Street and St. Clair Avenue.
As the cab neared West Seventh and Kellogg Boulevard, the cabdriver allegedly "put his hand on her leg and moved it up her skirt" and touched her through her underwear.
The passenger told the driver to stop, but he continued trying to touch her. She tried to get out of the cab at the intersection, but the driver locked the doors and drove off.
The driver then suggested the two find a parking lot somewhere and have sex.
Upset, the passenger "demanded that he stop. She told him that she had a boyfriend waiting for her at her friend's house," the complaint said.
The driver then told the woman that his name was Abdi and he gave her his cell phone number. The woman entered the number into her phone so she could report the incident, the complaint said.
When the cab approached the friend's house, the woman asked to get out, but the driver continued on.
"Let me ... get you ready for him," he allegedly told the woman.
The woman then tried to climb into the back of the cab, but the driver physically prevented her, according to the complaint.
The woman then "started freaking out," she later told officers, and started punching the driver in the shoulder. He finally pulled over and let her out of the cab.
"She threw some money at him and then ran out of the cab to her friend's house," the complaint said.
On Monday, the woman called police and provided the driver's phone number.
A police investigator called the number Tuesday and talked to a man who identified himself as Abdi. The investigator, posing as a fare, asked Abdi to pick her up at 367 Grove St. — St. Paul police headquarters.
At 11:30 that night, Mohamed showed up at the police station for the fare, in a vehicle owned by Air Wing Taxi and Towncar, and was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct.
The bartender later identified Mohamed as her assailant in a photo lineup, the complaint said.
Investigators then showed the cabdriver a photo of the bartender and he denied picking her up in his cab. When investigators said witnesses saw her get into his cab, he requested an attorney and the interview was terminated.
Police also called Yellow Cab — the company the bartender originally called for a ride — and an employee said "that a pirate cab that had been listening on a scanner had 'scooped' the fare," the complaint said.
If convicted, Mohamed faces 20 years in prison on the kidnapping count and 10 years on the criminal sexual conduct count.
In a statement, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said, "This was a despicable crime," adding, "The defendant will be held fully accountable for his actions."
Mohamed's family said the accusation doesn't fit the character of the Somali immigrant.
"I think they have the wrong person," Ilhan Aden, Mohamed's wife, said in an interview Thursday. The couple has a 2-year-old daughter and another child on the way. "I asked him and he said he never did the things they're accusing him of."
Mohamed was leasing the cab from Air Wing Taxi and Towncar. The company said it had no information about the incident.
A spokeswoman for St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections said she couldn't find a record of Mohamed being licensed in the city as a cabdriver
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John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093
Source: Pioneer Press