Fugees Founder Handed 14-Year Prison Sentence for Illegal Donations Tied to Obama’s 2012 Campaign

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a rapper and founding member of the 1990s hip-hop group Fugees, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Nov. 20 for conspiring to help a foreign national launder millions of dollars in illegitimate campaign contributions into the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Michel, 53, was sentenced in a Washington, D.C., courtroom on Thursday, after being convicted in April 2023 on 10 counts related to an illegal lobbying and money laundering scheme that was part of a wider foreign influence conspiracy involving Malaysian financier Jho Low.

In 2019, Michel and Low were charged with funneling millions of dollars of the latter’s money into former President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

According to the indictment, between June 2012 and November 2012, the Malaysian businessman had $21.6 million transferred to Michel, who then paid out approximately $865,000 of the money to more than a dozen straw donors to contribute to Obama’s joint fundraising committee.

“In addition, Michel personally directed more than $1 million of the money received from Low to an independent expenditure committee also involved in the presidential election in 2012,” the U.S. Department of Justice noted in a May 10, 2019, press release.

Michel and Low faced additional charges in June 2021 related to a 2017 back-channel lobbying campaign. A superseding indictment charged them with attempting to influence the then-administration and the Department of Justice to abandon its embezzlement investigation into Low and other individuals who were involved with the company 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

“Michel played a central role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to improperly influence top government officials, including the then-President of the United States and the then-Attorney General,” Harry A. Lidsky, then-special agent in charge of the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Cyber Investigations Office, said following the 2023 conviction.

“As proven at trial, the defendant engaged in an extensive conspiracy to use millions of dollars in foreign funds to engage in illegal back-channel lobbying and make unlawful campaign contributions,” Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., the then-assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, also shared at the time. “Today’s verdict demonstrates that anyone who engages in unlawful foreign-sponsored efforts to influence American officials, our elections, or the criminal justice system will be brought to justice.”

Prosecutors with the Department of Justice said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, noting in court documents that the rapper “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

“For his willingness to elevate foreign interests over those of the United States, Michel obtained more than $120 million from the architect of 1MDB, Low Taek Jho. After Michel was caught, he tampered with witnesses and then perjured himself at trial,” they wrote. “His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed.”

Michel’s attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, told The Epoch Times on Friday that the verdict was “unsupported by the evidence.”

“[T]he 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,” Zeidenberg added. “There simply is no justification for Mr. Michel being singled out like this except for the penalty for opting for trial. We will appeal.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.