The Farmington case moved from two attempted murder charges to a 20-year prison sentence.
HASTINGS, Minn. — A Dakota County judge sentenced Mehdi Badaoui to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted murder in the stabbing of his wife at their Farmington home.
The sentence, imposed June 3 by Judge Tanya O’Brien, followed Badaoui’s March 30 guilty plea and resolved a case filed after an April 15, 2025, domestic assault call. Prosecutors said Badaoui, 53, will receive credit for 416 days already served. He remained in the Dakota County Jail after sentencing while awaiting transfer to the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
The court outcome marked a sharp change from the case’s start. Badaoui was charged April 17, 2025, with two counts: attempted first-degree murder, which alleged premeditation, and attempted second-degree murder, which alleged intent without premeditation. The case was based on a criminal complaint that described a woman stabbed multiple times, witnesses inside the home and a bloodied pocketknife recovered from a kitchen counter. Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said the facts were “shocking” when charges were filed, and after sentencing she called the attack a brutal act of domestic violence.
Bail at the start of the case showed how serious prosecutors and the court considered the allegations. Judge Christopher Lehmann set bail at $1 million without conditions and $750,000 with conditions. The court also issued a domestic abuse no contact order. Those early orders kept Badaoui in custody while the case proceeded. Prosecutors said criminal charges were not evidence of guilt when the case was filed, but the presumption changed after Badaoui later admitted guilt to one count of first-degree attempted murder. The guilty plea meant jurors would not hear the case at trial.
The allegations behind the plea centered on the morning of April 15. Farmington police were called to the residence at about 8:30 a.m. for a domestic assault. Officers were told a woman inside had been stabbed and could not move. A witness led police to a bedroom, where Badaoui’s wife was lying on her side in a pool of blood. Officers found several stab wounds while treating her. One wound required a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. The woman was taken to a local hospital and underwent emergency surgery. Medical staff later reported that she had 10 stab wounds.
Prosecutors said the victim’s injuries were life-threatening. Officers found Badaoui in the garage with blood on his hand and took him into custody. The kitchen counter held a bloodied pocketknife, according to the charging account. The complaint also described what witnesses reported seeing before police arrived. A witness said she woke up to yelling, then saw Badaoui stab the victim. The witness said he dragged the woman through the kitchen and into a bedroom. Police wrote that another witness pleaded with him to stop, but he said he planned to kill the victim and go to jail.
The victim told police that Badaoui believed she had been unfaithful. She also said he had beaten her before and had threatened to stab her on multiple occasions. Badaoui gave police his own account after receiving his Miranda warning. He said he suspected his wife was cheating and had put a GPS tracking device in her car. He told officers he saw her drive somewhere other than work that morning, then drove to that location and confronted her. After the victim returned home, he said, they argued. He claimed she called him names and scratched his face before he picked up a knife.
Badaoui told investigators he began “hitting” the woman with the knife and said he stabbed her three or four times. The medical finding of 10 stab wounds became an important contrast in the record. Prosecutors did not identify the victim by name in public releases. The public case file, as described by the county attorney’s office, did not include a full account of her recovery after emergency surgery. It did show that police, medical staff and witnesses provided separate pieces of evidence that supported the attempted murder charge to which Badaoui later pleaded guilty.
The sentencing announcement gave the final numbers. The prison term was 240 months. The custody credit was 416 days. The offense of conviction was first-degree attempted murder. The judge was O’Brien. The county attorney was Keena. The defendant was 53 at sentencing and had been 52 when he was charged. The incident date was April 15, 2025. The plea date was March 30, 2026. The sentencing date was June 3, 2026. Together, those dates trace a case that moved from police response to charging, from pretrial custody to plea, and from plea to state prison.
Keena’s statements framed the case as both an attempted murder prosecution and a domestic violence case. At charging, she thanked Farmington police and first responders for life-saving aid and said her thoughts were with the victim as she recovered. At sentencing, she said, “This was a brutal act of domestic violence that could have resulted in a loss of life.” She also said the sentence reflected the county’s commitment to victims and offender accountability. Those comments were the main official statements released publicly by prosecutors at the start and end of the case.
The records released by prosecutors leave several parts of the courtroom proceeding undescribed. The public sentencing release did not say whether a victim impact statement was read. It did not say whether the defense asked for a shorter sentence or whether Badaoui spoke before O’Brien imposed the term. It did not detail how the remaining charge was handled after the guilty plea. It did state that Badaoui remained in county custody after sentencing and was awaiting transfer to the state prison system, the next step after a felony sentence of this length.
Badaoui’s case now stands as a closed Dakota County prosecution with a first-degree attempted murder conviction and a 20-year prison sentence. The next formal step is his transfer from the Dakota County Jail to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, where the 240-month term will be carried out with the custody credit already ordered.
Author note: Last updated July 7, 2026.