A man acquitted last year in the death a St. Paul mother during a robbery was found guilty Friday in Hennepin County for his role in a Minneapolis robbery and burglary spree in 2015 that left one person dead.
Albert McIntosh and Michelle Koester were found guilty of 11 counts in Hennepin County District Court for a targeting Hispanic neighborhoods on Oct. 18, 2015, as the victims were deemed more likely to be carrying cash. McIntosh was acquitted last year by a Ramsey County jury in the murder of Sarah Wierstad.
Among the Minneapolis charges McIntosh, 32, and Koester, 43, faced were one count each of aiding and abetting first-degree robbery; one count each of aiding and abetting second-degree murder; and one count each of aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony.
Authorities say Koester initially gathered the group, including her boyfriend McIntosh, on Oct. 18, 2015 to commit robbery.
Koester’s text messages revealed planning such as telling the group they would need a “pole,” a term for a gun. She was near the scene of all the crimes that night, authorities say, driving from place to place in Minneapolis, but never got out of the car.
Julio Mozo-Cuate, 42, was among those targeted for robberies that night, authorities say.
Mozo-Cuate was sitting in his car in an alley behind his home in the 3700 block of First Avenue South smoking a cigarette when Harper approached and asked for a smoke. Two other men quickly appeared and one managed to get Mozo-Cuate’s watch. Mozo-Cuate started honking the car horn.
That’s when authorities say McIntosh fired a gun at him four or five times. Mozo-Cuate later died at a hospital from gunshot wounds.
McIntosh had been charged in the death of Wierstad, which authorities said at the time was part of the Oct. 18, 2015, robbery spree.
Wierstad was shot to death outside her duplex on Bedford Street after arriving home from work that night.
A year later, following a day of deliberations, a Ramsey County District Court jury found McIntosh not guilty of intentional second-degree murder in connection with her death. No weapon was found tying McIntosh to Wierstad’s homicide.
McIntosh and Koester will be sentenced in the Minneapolis case on March 16.