Former youth wrestling coach not guilty of sexual assault charge in Scott County case

A jury in Scott County has acquitted a former youth wrestling coach of criminal sexual conduct.

Mustafa Shabazz, 45, was charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct in September 2020, after a young girl he coached accused him of sexual abuse. The jury reached its verdict after an hour and a half of deliberating.

In June, a Hennepin County jury acquitted Shabazz on the same charge in connection to a case involving another young girl who was on the same team.

Following the verdict, Shabazz declined to answer questions. Outside of the courthouse, his attorney Brockton Hunter told reporter Kirsten Swanson, “we have no comment at this time.”

5 INVESTIGATES first reported earlier this month that Shabazz was the subject of an internal investigation a decade ago, when he worked as a juvenile correctional officer in Hennepin County. 

In 2013, the county determined Shabazz engaged in inappropriate contact with a 14-year-old girl who had been in the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center. He admitted to contacting the girl on Facebook, to giving her his cell phone number and to meeting her alone in a motel room.

Initially fired, the county allowed Shabazz to resign, meaning the internal investigation went into a confidential file. Those details only recently came to light as part of the criminal case against Shabazz.

Records show police in Shakopee and Eden Prairie began investigating the former wrestling coach in February 2020, after learning of allegations of inappropriate contact from two female athletes he coached in a club program in the West Metro.