Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years in jail for a case by which he was convicted of illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in international contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection marketing campaign.
Michel, 52, declined to handle the court docket earlier than U.S. District Decide Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.
In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, together with conspiracy and appearing as an unregistered agent of a international authorities. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Legal professional Basic Jeff Periods.
Justice Division prosecutors stated federal sentencing tips beneficial a life sentence for Michel, whom they stated “betrayed his nation for cash” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to hold out his schemes.”
“His sentence ought to replicate the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the dangers to his nation, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.
Protection legal professional Peter Zeidenberg stated his shopper’s 14-year sentence is “utterly disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will attraction his conviction and sentence, in response to his lawyer.
Zeidenberg had beneficial a three-year jail sentence. A life sentence could be an “absurdly excessive” punishment for Michel, provided that it’s usually reserved for lethal terrorists and drug cartel leaders, Michel’s attorneys stated in a court docket submitting.
“The Authorities’s place is one that might trigger Inspector Javert to recoil and, if something, merely illustrates simply how simply the Tips may be manipulated to provide absurd outcomes, and the way poorly outfitted they’re, at the least on this event, to find out a good and simply sentence,” they wrote.
Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg through Getty Photos
Michel, a Brooklyn native whose dad and mom immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees together with childhood buddies Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. Their hip-hop band gained two Grammy Awards and bought tens of hundreds of thousands of albums.
Michel obtained greater than $120 million from Malaysian billionaire Low Taek Jho — often known as Jho Low — and steered a few of that cash by means of straw donors to Obama’s marketing campaign.
Michel stated throughout trial that he seen Low’s funds as “free cash,” and accepted the hundreds of thousands over the course of 9 months to assist Low safe a photograph op with Obama. He stated underneath oath on the time that nobody advised him such funds towards political donations may have been illegal or violations of marketing campaign finance legal guidelines.
The Justice Division additionally charged Michel with serving as an unregistered international agent for China, alleging that in 2017 he sought to sway the Trump administration to halt its probe into Low and to extradite a Chinese language authorities goal residing within the U.S. That particular person, dissident Miles Guo, was charged in New York in a billion-dollar fraud case and continues to be in custody.
Low, who has lived in China, was one of many major financiers of “The Wolf of Wall Avenue,” a film starring DiCaprio. Low is a fugitive however has maintained his innocence.
“Low’s motivation for giving Mr. Michel cash to donate was not in order that he may obtain some coverage goal. As a substitute, Low merely wished to acquire {a photograph} with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s attorneys wrote.
In August 2024, the decide rejected Michel’s request for a brand new trial based mostly partly on his protection legal professional’s use of a generative synthetic intelligence program throughout his closing of the trial’s arguments. The judges stated that and different trial errors did not quantity to a severe miscarriage of justice.
