Councilman Hassan guilty of filing false AV ballot application

By Charles Sercombe
City Councilmember Mohammed Hassan was spared being found guilty of two felony charges involving election fraud.
However, he was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement last Wednesday, in a Wayne County Circuit Court jury trial. He faces a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail.
That false statement involved filing an absentee ballot application for a voter who testified she had never asked for the ballot and does not vote.
Hassan went through a three-day trial that started last Monday.
The jury, of mixed race and gender, took about three hours to deliberate their verdict.
The jury’s rejection of the two election-related felony charges spares Hassan from facing a possible five-year prison term.
A Michigan State Police forensics expert testified that Hassan had forged the signature of a voter. Despite that testimony and the testimony of the voter in question, Hassan’s attorney, Scott Ruark, said that the prosecutor failed to do “what the law requires of them, which is to prove every element of every charge beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The case was prosecuted by the Monroe County Prosecutor’s office, which stepped in to take over the case after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel bowed out from prosecuting the matter, due to a perceived conflict of interest, and asked for another prosecutor’s office in the state to handle the case.
The charges stem from the 2023 election. Hassan consistently denied any wrongdoing. The Review reached out to Hassan for comment, but he did not return calls.
He is the second councilmember to face charges involving election fraud. First-term Councilmember Muhtasin Sadman previously pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of loitering about an illegal business. Sadman originally faced felony election fraud charges.
Updated July 10, 2026