Information Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Nov. 21, 2025: Haitian-American rapper Pras Michel, a founding member of the legendary hip-hop group the Fugees, was sentenced on Nov. twentieth to 14 years in federal jail following his 2023 conviction on a number of expenses together with conspiracy, cash laundering, and unlawful international lobbying.
Michel, whose full title is Prakazrel Samuel Michel, obtained the sentence from Decide Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in a Washington, D.C. federal courtroom, in accordance with Billboard. After finishing his jail time period, he may even serve three years of supervised launch. Federal prosecutors had pushed for a for much longer sentence spanning a number of a long time, whereas Michel’s attorneys urged the courtroom to impose not more than three years.
Michel is predicted to give up on January twenty seventh, and his authorized group plans to attraction each the conviction and the sentence.
“All through his profession, Pras has damaged obstacles,” mentioned spokesperson Erica Dumas. “This isn’t the top of his story. He appreciates the outpouring of assist as he approaches the subsequent chapter.”
Michel was first indicted in 2019 on expenses of funneling unlawful international donations into Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election marketing campaign. In 2021, prosecutors expanded the indictment to incorporate further counts of financial institution fraud, witness tampering, concealing materials info, violating the Overseas Brokers Registration Act (FARA), and performing as an unregistered agent for China.
The case centered on Michel’s ties to Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, the fugitive on the middle of the huge 1MDB corruption scandal involving the theft of $4.5 billion. Prosecutors mentioned Michel helped route cash related to the scheme and took part in a covert lobbying effort geared toward getting the Trump administration to drop investigations into Low and to facilitate the deportation of a Chinese language dissident.
After his conviction, Michel sought a retrial, arguing his former lawyer used an AI-generated closing argument, which he claimed amounted to ineffective counsel – a request the courtroom in the end rejected.
Amid the authorized turmoil, Michel briefly reunited with Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean for Fugees performances in 2023 however later distanced himself from further reunion plans.
1: Pras was born in Brooklyn to Haitian dad and mom. He was raised in Irvington, New Jersey and attended Columbia Excessive College in Maplewood, New Jersey.
2. When he was 15, he met Hill at school. In 1988, Pras launched Hill to Wyclef Jean. Pras, Jean, and Hill started to rehearse beneath the steerage of Kool and the Gang’s producer, Ronald Khalis Bell, and subsequently they fashioned a musical group referred to as The Rap Translators in 1989 (often known as Tranzlator Crew).
2: They might go on to turn into one of the influential hip-hop teams of the Nineties with Pras because the founding member of the Grammy-winning group, The Fugees.
3: Past The Fugees’ multi-platinum success with The Rating, Michel constructed a solo profession with international hits like “Ghetto Supastar,” and expanded into movie, producing documentaries corresponding to Skid Row and the award-winning Candy Micky For President.
4: His political involvement grew through the years, together with fundraising for Democratic causes – actions that in the end turned central to the federal case that led to his conviction and the 14-year jail sentence.
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