{"id":1927,"date":"2025-12-02T20:24:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2025-12-02T20:24:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:24:25","slug":"pras-michel-fugees-rapper-who-betrayed-us-for-money-is-jailed-for-14-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1927","title":{"rendered":"Pras Michel: Fugees rapper \u2018\u2018who betrayed US for money\u2019\u2019 is jailed for 14 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Grammy-winning rapper who &#8220;betrayed his country for money&#8221; has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prakazrel &#8220;Pras&#8221; Michel, who was part of 1990s hip-hop group The Fugees, was convicted of illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to Barack Obama&#8217;s re-election campaign in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Asake - Organise (Official Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_u4_iWCvZ5c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Justice Department had accused the 53-year-old of accepting $120m (\u00a392m) from Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, who wanted to gain political influence in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prosecutors said Michel &#8220;lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his actions&#8221; &#8211; and sought to deceive the White House, senior politicians and the FBI for almost a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, it is claimed he urged the Trump administration and the justice department to drop embezzlement investigations against Low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michel was convicted of 10 counts by a federal jury in 2023 &#8211; and last month, he was ordered to forfeit about $65m (\u00a350m) for his role in the scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio testified at the trial, and Low was a primary financier in his 2013 film The Wolf Of Wall Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Oscar-winning actor said the businessman&#8217;s funding and legitimacy had been carefully vetted before they entered a partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence to &#8220;reflect the breadth and depth of Michel&#8217;s crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the rapper&#8217;s lawyer Peter Zeidenberg has argued that the 14-year term is &#8220;completely disproportionate to the offence&#8221; &#8211; and is vowing to appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, a judge rejected Michel&#8217;s request for a new trial after claiming that one of his lawyers had used AI during closing arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Low Taek Jho has been accused of having a central role in the 1MDB scandal, amid claims billions of dollars were stolen from a Malaysian state fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 44-year-old is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence, with his lawyers writing: &#8220;Low&#8217;s motivation for giving Michel money to donate was not so that he could achieve some policy objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then President Obama.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michel, who was born in Brooklyn, was a founding member of The Fugees with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean &#8211; selling tens of millions of records. <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/pras-michel-fugees-who-betrayed-us-for-money-is-jailed-for-14-years-13473440\">(SkyNews)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Grammy-winning rapper who &#8220;betrayed his country for money&#8221; has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. Prakazrel &#8220;Pras&#8221; Michel, who was part of 1990s hip-hop group The Fugees, was convicted of illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to Barack Obama&#8217;s re-election campaign in 2012. The Justice Department had accused the 53-year-old of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[2358,1993,2357,2356,2355,150,2353,2354,57],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-1mdb","tag-barack-obama","tag-embezzlement","tag-justice-department","tag-low-taek","tag-malaysia","tag-pras-michel","tag-the-fugees","tag-united-states"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pras Michel: Fugees rapper \u2018\u2018who betrayed US for money\u2019\u2019 is jailed for 14 years - Tona Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Grammy-winning rapper who &quot;betrayed his country for money&quot; has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. 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