Star Tribune
Supreme Court reverses key conviction in 2019 murder of Minneapolis real estate agent
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed the conviction of a man accused of planning the kidnapping and murder of a Minneapolis real estate agent two years ago.
The case against Lyndon Wiggins, 39, was remanded back to Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday. Investigators accuse Wiggins of planning the 2019 abduction and murder of Monique Baugh after a music partnership with Baugh’s boyfriend, Jon Mitchell-Momoh, soured. Baugh was kidnapped and shot three times. She was 28.
Mitchell-Momoh was shot multiple times by a masked intruder while at Baugh’s home watching their two daughters. He survived, calling 911 and alleging Wiggins may be the culprit.
A jury found Wiggins guilty in 2022 of first-degree premeditated murder, attempted first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree intentional murder while committing a felony, and kidnapping. Wiggins appealed the decision, claiming that jurors were given erroneous instructions that affected the outcome of his trial.
“At trial, defense counsel objected to the instructions given, reasoning that ‘if the jury finds that someone else committed the crime, that would be sufficient to find Mr. Wiggins guilty.’ We agree,” the 22-page opinion letter read, pointing to accomplice Elsa Segura whose conviction was reversed for similar reasons. “Here, we do the same, and reverse the judgement of Wiggins’s convictions and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Mitchell-Momoh testified that Wiggins signed him to his music label Black Bag Entertainment, but Mitchell-Momoh left the label in 2019. He said Wiggins accused him of stealing music.
Investigators recovered text messages in which Wiggins told Segura that he would have to sue Mitchell-Momoh. Wiggins told another contact that he nearly “caught a murder case” after an interaction with Mitchell-Momoh.
Tipsters suggested that Wiggins coordinated the murder as a a paid hit against Mitchell-Momoh. Cell phone data placed Wiggins near the Metro PCS where Cedric Berry and Berry Davis bought a phone to lure and kidnap Baugh. Such data also placed Wiggins, Berry, Davis, the new phone and Segura near Segura’s home in the minutes before she called Baugh under the alias “Lisa Powalski.”
Segura received a life prison sentence without parole for her role in Baugh’s death before the Supreme Court reversed her conviction this January. Her case was also remanded back to the Hennepin County District Court, and she remains in custody at the Shakopee women’s prison.
Star Tribune staff writer Kim Hyatt contributed to this story.
Many residents in the apartments next to the proposed nightclub are visiting workers such as travel nurses or farm laborers, he said. “It makes no sense to have a nightclub that has concerts next to a place where people need to rest to work in the community,” Zuleger said.
He has said that the company also partners with addiction centers and women’s shelters to house Willmar’s most vulnerable residents, and some of these tenants would be too close for comfort to the new nightclub.
Instead of a nightclub, the site should be used for a Somali community center where children from the nearby apartments can play, Zuleger said. Willmar, a city of about 21,000 people, is about 24% Hispanic and 11% Black, with 16% of the city born overseas, double the average rate in the rest of Minnesota. About 43% of the company’s tenants are Somali, and Zuleger called them his “best-paying renters.”
But Doug Fenstra, the real estate agent helping sell the property at 951 High Av., said he had never heard about the possibility of a Somali community center before Zuleger brought up the idea at an October planning commission meeting.
On Wednesday, the planning commission deliberated whether a nightclub would fit the character of the neighborhood. They noted that there was already a brewery in the area.
They passed a motion granting the conditional-use permit.
“DHS and our state and federal partners have seen evidence that kickbacks are happening in Minnesota,” Inspector General Kulani Moti said in a statement. “That’s why we brought an anti-kickback proposal to the Minnesota Legislature last session. We will continue to work with the Legislature next session on ways to strengthen the integrity of our public programs.”
Nuway Alliance, one of the state’s largest nonprofit substance use disorder treatment providers, pays up to $700 a month for someone’s housing while they are in intensive outpatient treatment, the organization’s website states. The site lists dozens of sober housing programs clients can choose from.
Nuway leaders said they got an inquiry from the government about two and a half years ago indicating they are conducting a civil investigation into the housing model.
But officials with the nonprofit said in an email they believe what they are doing is legal and clients need it. More than 600 people are using their assistance to stay in recovery residences, Nuway officials stated. They said having a safe, supportive place to stay is particularly important for the vulnerable people they serve, more than half of whom reported being homeless in the six months before they started treatment.
Health plans knew about, approved and even lauded their program, Nuway leaders said, noting that health insurer UCare even gave it an award.
“The state of Minnesota has been fully aware of our program for a decade,” the organization said. “Since payors are fully aware of, and support the program, we struggle to see how anyone could argue it is improper, let alone fraudulent.”
Mounds View, the first Minnesota city to require homeowners to discharge racist language buried in deeds before they sell their homes, is celebrating a milestone: at least 100 homeowners have completed the process.
Officials say discharging the language is a symbolic step, but an important one.
“How could we call ourselves an inclusive community with the words ‘This home shall not be sold to a non-white person’ buried in the deeds?” Mayor Zach Lindstrom said at the state of the city address Monday.
Racially restrictive covenants, found in deeds around the Twin Cities and Minnesota, were legally enforceable tools of racial segregation for the first half of the 20th century. They barred homes’ sale to, and sometimes even occupancy by, anyone who wasn’t white until 1948, when they became unenforceable. Mapping Prejudice, a University of Minnesota research project uncovering these covenants, has found more than 33,000 of them in Minnesota, including more than 500 in Mounds View.
Many local cities have partnered with Just Deeds, a coalition that helps cities and their residents learn about and discharge covenants. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law allowing homeowners to add language to their deeds that discharges racist covenants but doesn’t erase them from the record. Earlier this year, Mounds View was the first to pass an ordinance requiring it. The city is also helping residents navigate the process.
Just because these covenants are no longer enforceable doesn’t mean they haven’t had long-lasting consequences, Kirsten Delegard, Mapping Prejudice project director, said at a Mounds View City Council meeting this summer: Minneapolis homes with racial covenants are worth 15% more than those without, she said. And neighborhoods with covenants remain the whitest parts of the Twin Cities.
Mounds View residents Rene and Steven Johnson were troubled to learn from Mapping Prejudice that their house, and many homes in their neighborhood, had racially restrictive covenants on them. It took some effort, including a trip to the Ramsey County Recorder’s Office, to find the document, which not only contained race restrictions but barred unmarried couples from owning the home.
The couple got their covenant discharged, and educated the city about the process, Rene Johnson said. That helped lead to the ordinance requiring covenants to be discharged before sale.
