Federal prosecutors say he worked with Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman, to funnel foreign money into American politics.
The federal conspiracy trial of Grammy-winning rapper and producer Pras Michel, best known as part of the 90s hip-hop group the Fugees, began Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Michel, who arrived at the courthouse alongside his lawyer David Kenner, has been charged with multiple felonies alleging his participation in a conspiracy to make illegal campaign contributions using foreign money, witness tampering, and failure to register as a foreign agent of the Chinese government. Michel has pleaded not guilty to the charges, the most serious of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The case is “filled with political intrigue, backroom dealing…burner phones and lies,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Lockhart told jurors during her roughly 30-minute-long opening statement.
The allegations against Michel, who in recent years has reinvented himself as an activist and businessman, focus on work he did on behalf of Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman and international fugitive wanted for allegedly stealing billions from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB. Low was charged as Michel’s co-defendant in this case but has yet to be arrested.
Michel, as a member of the Fugees, had one of the most successful hip-hop albums of all time with The Score, released in 1996, Lockhart noted. But by 2012, “he was looking for other ways to be paid,” she said.
“The defendant needed money and was willing to do anything to get it, including being a paid agent of the Chinese government,” Lockhart said.
Prosecutors allege that Low and Michel conspired to donate millions of dollars of Low’s money to the 2012 Obama campaign and covered up the money’s foreign source using a network of straw donors and falsified FEC reports. Federal law prohibits non-citizens from donating to political campaigns. Michel, again acting on Low’s behalf, later allegedly lobbied the Trump administration to drop the Justice Department’s investigation into Low’s alleged embezzlement from 1MDB.
“Low had money to burn and the defendant was willing to cash in at any turn,” Lockhart said.
Michel and Low also lobbied the Trump administration, on behalf of Chinese government officials, to extradite a Chinese dissident living in the U.S., according to prosecutors. The dissident, Guo Wengui, was never extradited but was arrested this month and federally charged with fraud and money laundering. Michel’s defense team has said they will ask permission to call Guo as a trial witness.
Michel and others who he recruited to help lobby for Guo’s extradition concealed that their efforts were on the behalf of Chinese officials and that they were being financed by Low, prosecutors allege. Michel knew that he was legally required to register as a foreign agent but lied about his actions because “he was getting paid too much along the way,” Lockhart told jurors Thursday.
Kenner, a Los Angeles-based defense lawyer who previously represented rapper Snoop Dogg during his 1996 murder trial and subsequent acquittal, declined to make an opening statement today, reserving his right to make an opening statement after prosecutors rest their case.
Low’s lavish pre-indictment lifestyle and the sprawling nature of a conspiracy spanning two presidential administrations has set the stage for a trial that could feature testimony from Hollywood royalty and the Washington elite. Potential witnesses include actor Leonardo Di Caprio (Low partially funded The Wolf of Wall Street), former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, casino magnate Steve Wynn, former Trump deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger, former RNC official Elliott Broidy and former Trump national security advisor H.R. McMaster.
Broidy previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent for his role in helping Low and Michel lobby the Trump administration to extradite Guo. Broidy was pardoned by Trump on the last day of his presidency and did not have to serve time in prison.
Michel’s defense team attempted to call presidents Trump and Obama as witnesses, but U.S. District Judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected that effort saying their testimony would be irrelevant.
The trial is expected to last through April, with both sides planning to call approximately 30 witnesses.