Pras Michél gets 14-year prison term over Obama campaign donations, Jho Low links

Pras Michél has been sentenced for his role in illegal donations to Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Photo / The Washington Post

Prakazrel “Pras” Michél, who performed in the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Friday after a criminal trial that involved testimony from Leonardo DiCaprio and illegal contributions to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

In April 2023, Michél was found guilty of 10 federal crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, making false statements to banks and witness tampering, primarily for accepting a US$20 million ($35.6m) payment from Low Taek Jho, a businessman and fugitive who stole US$4.5 billion from the Malaysian Government and used it to splurge on an extravagant, jet-setting lifestyle filled with alcohol, gambling and celebrities.

The businessman, who goes by “Jho Low”, enlisted Michél’s help to get a picture with Obama, who was then US President and whom Michél had previously met and supported. To help get Low his photo, Michél bought tickets to several of the President’s events in 2012, donating about US$2m of his payout to Obama’s presidential campaign under his name and the names of friends, who served as straw donors.

Michél also helped Low downplay the severity of his involvement in stealing from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund when the financier was under investigation in the US in 2017. The former rapper ended up netting more than US$100m in his dealings with Low. Michél testified that he didn’t think he was doing anything illegal.

The trial, which played out in US District Court in Washington in 2023, included mentions of high-profile figures in Hollywood and Washington who had somehow gotten caught in Low’s dizzyingly expensive way of living. DiCaprio took the stand to talk about how he thought Low was a legitimate businessman when Low financed the 2013 Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street.

John Keller, a former Department of Justice employee who was the lead prosecutor during the trial, said in a statement to The Washington Post that the sentence reflects the gravity of Michél’s efforts “to manipulate decision-making at the highest levels of our government, for profit and on behalf of foreign interests”.

“The defendant engaged in multiple schemes to illegally influence two United States Presidents and laundered US$100m … in the process, most of which he kept for himself,” Keller wrote.

Michél’s attorneys told the Post they plan to appeal. “We believe the verdict was unsupported by the evidence and that the sentence is completely disproportional to the facts alleged, particularly when compared to his co-defendants, all of whom were intimately involved in the same alleged scheme,” wrote Peter Zeidenberg, one of the attorneys.

One of the other defendants in the case was pardoned, another was sentenced to three months of probation and another received two years in prison.

“There simply is no justification for Mr Michel being singled out like this except for the penalty for opting for trial,” Zeidenberg said.

Randy Zelin, another member of the defence team, said in a statement that he was “devastated” to see the sentence. “Personally, I grew fond of Pras, and it was easy to zealously advocate for him.”

Michél was one of the three members of the Fugees, whose blend of rap, reggae and R&B diverged from popular gangster rap music in the 1990s and led to the group’s meteoric rise. The group, which included Michél’s childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, won two Grammys in 1997 for its critically acclaimed sophomore album The Score, which sold more than 22 million copies, and its hit cover of Killing Me Softly With His Song.

After the group split, Michél established a career as a documentary producer and entrepreneur. Jean continued his recording career and got involved in humanitarian and political efforts. And Hill went on to have a successful solo career, becoming the first hip-hop artist to win an album of the year Grammy for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999.

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