Pras Michel

Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, a founding member of the hip-hop group Fugees, was convicted in April 2023 in a U.S. federal court on 10 counts, including conspiracy, witness tampering, money laundering, bank fraud, and acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government. The charges stemmed from his involvement with Malaysian financier Jho Low, who was accused of embezzling $4 billion from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund. Prosecutors established that Michel received over $100 million from Low to conduct illegal influence campaigns. This included funneling illegal foreign donations into Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign via straw donors and lobbying the Trump administration to drop investigations into Low and extradite a Chinese dissident. In 2024, Michel was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison, followed by three years of probation. A judge denied his request for a retrial, which was based on claims that his attorney improperly used artificial intelligence in his closing arguments. Michel has vowed to appeal his conviction and sentence.