Apr. 22—ROCHESTER — An AT&T store worker is facing charges for his alleged connection to the 2024 aggravated robbery that happened while he was working.
Mohamed Aden Hassan, 25, has been charged with first-degree aggravated robbery, according to new court documents filed on Tuesday, April 22. Hassan was found lying in the store’s office with a laceration on his calf when police responded to the robbery on May 28, 2024.
Hassan’s charges come after Bilal Hilowle, 21, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery but told the court there was a third man working with them.
“I did not stab anybody,” Hilowle said in court on April 10. “He stabbed himself.”
Hilowle claimed he and Ahmed Ali were working with one of the store’s workers who was in on the robbery. He alleged that the worker, later alleged to be Hassan, had provided the men with the store’s passcode in advance. Ali is also facing an aggravated robbery charge.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Hassan, Rochester police responded to a reported robbery in May 2024 at the AT&T store on Crossroads Drive Southwest in Rochester. When officers arrived, the store manager told police the store had been robbed by two men dressed in all black.
The night of the robbery, the manager told police he and Hassan were closing the store when the men entered. Hilowle and Ali used the workers to try opening the safe before rummaging through a box of used and returned phones. When police arrived at the store, Ali and Hilowle attempted to flee but were apprehended, one by a nearby laundromat and the other outside of a liquor store.
AT&T Loss Prevention told RPD that the store had 12 phones go missing the week before the robbery, according to the complaint.
A “cellphone ATM business” verified that several of the stolen phones were sold using their machines. Ali was visible in the surveillance photos taken by the machines during the transactions, which happened at Walmart North and Walmart South in Rochester.
In one of the surveillance photos, Hassan was visible in his AT&T staff shirt, standing next to Ali as he made a sale.
Ali’s personal phone was searched in connection with the robbery investigation. Police found a text message thread between Hassan and Ali regarding selling the phones at Walmart.
The store’s district manager said Hassan never reported to his boss that any phones were missing and claimed he did not know where any of the phones were.
The complaint did not say how Hassan received the laceration on his calf.
Hassan’s first appearance in Olmsted County District Court is scheduled for Oct. 30.