Fugees rapper sentenced to 14 years in prison over illegal Obama donations

Justice Department prosecutors accused Grammy-winning rapper Pras Michel of betraying his state for money.

A United States territory justice has sentenced Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a subordinate of 1990s hip-hop radical the Fugees, to 14 years successful situation for illegally funnelling millions of dollars successful overseas contributions to erstwhile US President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Michel declined to code the tribunal earlier Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him connected Thursday. The proceedings successful Washington, DC, included grounds from erstwhile Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Hollywood histrion Leonardo DiCaprio.

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This week’s sentencing came aft a national assemblage convicted Michel connected 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting arsenic an unregistered cause of a overseas government, successful April 2023.

Michel obtained much than $120m from fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho – besides known arsenic Jho Low – and steered immoderate of that wealth done straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

Low is wanted for his starring relation successful the 1MDB scandal, successful which billions of dollars were pilfered from Malaysia’s authorities concern money successful 1 of the largest fiscal frauds successful history.

Several elder fiscal figures and members of Malaysia’s authorities person been convicted for their relation successful the scandal, including disgraced erstwhile Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was handed a 12-year situation sentence successful 2022, which was aboriginal halved.

Court documents, filed by Justice Department prosecutors connected Thursday, said the 52-year-old Grammy-winning rapper “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to transportation retired his schemes” arsenic helium syphoned amerciable payments from Low to the Obama campaign.

It is amerciable successful the US for foreigners to donate to predetermination campaigns, arsenic good arsenic to wage idiosyncratic other to marque a run contribution.

“Prakazrel Michel betrayed his state for money. He funnelled millions of dollars successful prohibited overseas contributions into a United States statesmanlike predetermination and attempted to manipulate a sitting president to service a overseas transgression and a overseas power,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors besides said Michel had attempted to extremity a Justice Department probe into Low and the 1MDB scandal, arsenic good arsenic “tampered with witnesses and past perjured himself astatine trial”.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly was advised by prosecutors that national sentencing guidelines recommended a beingness condemnation for specified crimes, urging her to instrumentality into relationship the “breadth and extent of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed”.

Michel’s lawyers downplayed the grade of his crimes, saying Low’s information for donating wealth was not to “achieve immoderate argumentation objective”.

“Instead, Low simply wanted to get a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s lawyers wrote.

Low – who remains successful hiding and claims innocence – courted America’s affluent and celebrated during a years-long spending spree allegedly financed by funds stolen from 1MDB.

Notably, helium was 1 of the superior financiers of the 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street, starring DiCaprio.

Defence lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Michel volition appeal.

He labelled his client’s 14-year condemnation “completely disproportionate to the offence” and “absurdly high” fixed specified presumption are typically reserved for deadly terrorists and cause cartel leaders.

Instead, Zeidenberg recommended a three-year situation condemnation for Michel.

Michel, a Brooklyn autochthonal whose parents immigrated to the US from Haiti, was a founding subordinate of the Fugees on with puerility friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. The radical won 2 Grammy Awards during their highest successful the 1990s and sold tens of millions of albums.