(Le Floridien ) — Haitian-American rapper Pras Michél was found guilty in federal court in Washington on Wednesday of 10 criminal counts related to an international conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the US government. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Born Prakazrel Samuel Michel, the Grammy-winning artist and former member of the Fugees who rose to fame with the hip hop group Fugees, alongside his cousin Wyclef Jean and former high- School classmate Lauryn Hill, in the 90s, faced multiple counts over the failed conspiracy to help Malaysian businessman Jho Low and the Chinese government gain access to US officials, including former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
After deliberating for two days, a jury in U.S. District Court in Washington found Michél guilty of all the charges against him, including lying to banks, in a convoluted case arising tangentially from one of the world’s biggest financial scandals: the looting of $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The 50-year-old former rap star, who sat impassively as the verdicts were announced, was not accused of participating in the gargantuan theft. The charges he faced stemmed from his association with the alleged architect of the embezzlement, a wild-spending, lavish-partying Malaysian financier named Low Taek Jho, who is a fugitive from justice.
No sentencing date has been set. Some of the offenses he was convicted of are punishable by up to 20 years in prison, but under advisory federal sentencing guidelines, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly probably will impose a shorter prison term.
The former musician did not comment to reporters outside the courthouse. His attorney, David Kenner, expressed disappointment about the verdicts, but said he was confident that his mistrial motions will work out in their favor.
“We are extremely disappointed in that result but are very, very confident in the ultimate outcome of this case,” his attorney told reporters, adding: “If we do move to a sentencing hearing I remain very confident we will certainly appeal this case. This is not over.”
Michel testified last week that Low paid Michel $20 million in 2012 in order to get a picture of himself with Obama and prosecutors alleged Michel funneled over $800,000 of that money to Obama’s campaign through a number of straw donors.
In his defense, Michel testified he never used the money at Low’s direction but instead saw it as his money which he could spend however he wanted.
“I could have bought 12 elephants with it,” he told the jury.
When Trump came to power in 2017 and investigations started to ramp up into Low and his alleged role in billions of dollars being embezzled from 1MBD, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Low went to Michel again, prosecutors alleged.
According to the prosecutors, Low directed over $100 million to Michel to help push the government, including Trump, to drop its investigation into Low. Prosecutors also say Michel advocated for the extradition of a Chinese dissident, Guo Wengui, on behalf of the Chinese government.
Michel, however, testified he only tried to help Low find an attorney in the US and only told authorities about Guo because he thought he was a criminal. The former Fugees member also said the $100 million was for a media business he was starting and the investment wasn’t from Low.
Low, who was charged along with Michel, is believed to be in China. Guo has since been arrested and charged by the Justice Department with defrauding investors in an unrelated case.
In testimony beginning March 30, the jurors, via witness accounts, were taken on kaleidoscopic trips to rarefied places — to outlandishly extravagant parties with the rich and famous in Las Vegas and other hot spots; to the inner cloisters of the White House and the Justice Department; and to a secret overseas meeting between a top Chinese domestic security official and an admitted multimillion-dollar U.S. influence peddler.
Michél testified that he did not know it was illegal to lobby for foreign nationals without registering with the U.S. government. Kenner argued that because his client “was not willful and was not deliberate” in violating the law, he should be acquitted. “The government’s case under FARA is a house of cards,” he told the jury.
“It is not complicated,” prosecutor Sean F. Mulryne told the panel in his closing argument. “At its core, it is simple and straightforward: Mr. Michél broke the law.”
Mulryne added: “Mr. Michél conspired “to sell out our democracy” for a pilfered foreign fortune. “He was greedy,” the prosecutor said. “He wanted money, and he got it.”