State Champ Radio pras
HipHopWired Featured Video
Pras Michel is currently battling charges of working as a secret agent for the Chinese government, which could land the Fugees star several years behind bars. However, after a mid-month special hearing, Pras Michel might have a glimmer of hope that a retrial is underway as he awaits sentencing.
In a new article from Vulture, it was revealed that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly oversaw a three-day hearing for Pras Michel and his new legal team to present a series of questions to the rapper’s former attorney, David Kenner. Michel is accusing Kenner of dialing it in while representing Michel, including a claim that the attorney used AI to write a closing statement.
Kenner, despite it all, says he tried his best to get Michel cleared of the charges and even supported his former client’s hopes of gaining a retrial.
“I’m on Team Pras,” Kenner said on the witness stand during the hearing earlier this month. “I did not think he should have been convicted. I hope he is granted the retrial he seeks.”
The hearing revealed that Kenner, 81, hired a medical malpractice lawyer to oversee the matter but that the gentlemen refused to attend any of the trial happenings due to not wanting to leave his pit bulls at home in Minneapolis. Instead, the attorney told the outlet that his dogs are aggressive and said that he’d be able to perform his tasks from home.
The fact that the judge overseeing the matter called this hearing suggests there is some credence to Michel’s new claims that Kenner did not represent his client correctly and possibly violated his constitutional rights.
“She’s a careful and smart and fair judge,” Paul Pelletier, a former Justice Department prosecutor, shared with Vulture. “Calling this hearing was the fair thing to do, given what she observed during trial.”
Kenner found fame after defending the likes of Suge Knight, Snoop Dog, and the late Tupac “2Pac” Shakur. Kenner was able to get Snoop Dogg acquitted of murder charges in 1996. It should be noted that beyond Kenner’s Hip-Hop credentials, he is an attorney of considerable notoriety but it appears that his health and unorthodox methods were a bad cocktail for Michel and his legal needs.
Pras Michel isn’t out of the woods yet as the judge is still set to issue a ruling at a later time but it isn’t readily known which way the pendulum will swing.
—
Photo: Tasos Katopodis / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Pras Michel and his legal issues are still hanging over his head but on Wednesday (January 10), he entered a new hearing with a new legal team. The Fugees rapper is now represented by a new legal team featuring Doug Jones, a former senator who represented Alabama.
As reported by Vulture, Pras Michel, 51, was convicted on 10 counts of connected to a conspiracy to influence the Chinese government in Washington, D.C. nearly nine months ago. He has since fired his former attorney, David Kenner, who Pras has accused of using AI to write the rapper’s closing statement in his earlier trial.
According to the outlet, the hearing for today isn’t typical and suggests that there could be a retrial or acquittal of the previous convictions, this is due to the prosecution’s alleged mishandling of the case and Kenner’s defense tactics.
Before working with Doug Jones, Pras hired new lawyers to handle the Kenner issue and toured for much of the latter part of 2023 with his Fugees bandmates as part of Lauryn Hill’s 25th-anniversary tour in connection to her debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Jones made his mark as a civil rights attorney and was the federal prosecutor who helped convict two members of the Ku Klux Klan for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four Black girls in 2020 and 2021.
The hearing this week will focus on Kenner, who once represented Snoop Dogg in 1996 and aided the popular rapper and pitchman in dodging murder charges. Michel’s side argues that Kenner, 82, was not up to par to represent Michel, especially in a case of that magnitude.
“Upon reviewing the record of Mr. Michel’s previous trial, questions have emerged about the consistency and fairness of the legal process,” shared Michel’s publicist, Erica Dumas, in a statement.
Kenner is expected to take the stand and explain his side while facing accusations of using AI to write Michel’s closing argument statment.
Pras Michel is still awaiting sentencing on the previous conviction but plans to hit the road again with the Fugees this March, according to sources close to Vulture.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Pras Michel and his ongoing legal issues are far from nearing a solid conclusion after the Fugees rapper and entrepreneur requested a new trial via an explosive claim. According to a new report, Pras Michel claims his former attorney used artificial intelligence in his closing argument during the trial earlier this year that ended in the Haitian-American’s conviction.
As Politico reported, Pras Michel, who was convicted in April on several charges including witness tampering, acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, and conspiracy, alleges that his former defense team used AI to create his closing argument in that earlier trial.
From Politico:
In a withering motion filed Monday night with a federal judge in Washington, Michel’s new attorneys argued that his Los Angeles-based lawyer David Kenner relied on the fledgling technology at critical points in Michel’s trial, contributing to “prejudicial ineffective assistance of counsel.”
Kenner “used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes, and he then publicly boasted that the AI program ‘turned hours or days of legal work into seconds,’” Michel’s new defense team from D.C.-based ArentFox Schiff wrote. “It is now apparent that Kenner and his co-counsel appear to have had an undisclosed financial stake in the AI program, and they experimented with it during Michel’s trial so they could issue a press release afterward promoting the program — a clear conflict of interest.”
A former publicist for Michel added that Kenner allegedly admitted that “AI wrote our closing,” which former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg shared in a declaration that went with the current defense team’s motion.
Pras Michel joined his Fugees bandmates on Tuesday (October 17) for the start of a reunion tour in support of the 25th anniversary of Lauryn Hill’s acclaimed solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
—
Photo: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Pras will be joining his Fugees brethren for a nationwide tour in support of Ms. Lauryn Hill’s 25th anniversary of her debut album. The rapper and businessman was recently spotted in California and was asked about the upcoming tour and if new music was on the horizon.
As reported exclusively by TMZ Hip Hop, Pras, real name Prakazrel Michel, was in Beverly Hills when a reporter from the outlet got in some questions regarding new music from himself or his Fugees brethren. The Haitian-American star was more focused on the upcoming tour in support of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill turning the big 25.
Related Stories
According to the outlet, Pras learned about the band getting back together again via TMZ Hip Hop and is now focused on creating a good set for the fans that will come out in droves for sure.
The “Ghetto Superstar” artist is facing federal charges and while he was largely mum about the case, he did share with TMZ that he’s retained new counsel and is hoping for a positive outcome in the matter.
Check out the exchange below.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Tasos Katopodis / Getty
Pras has been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States, amongst other charges. The founding member of the storied rap group the Fugees allegedly got his hands dirty with corruption across the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
CNN reports that on Wednesday (April 26), Pras, 50, born Prakazrel Samuel Michel, was found guilty of 10 criminal counts that stem from an international conspiracy involving the US government. The charges all derive from Pras’ financial relationship with a Malaysian businessman named Jho Low and using his influence in the aid of the Chinese government to acquire access to US officials. Said officials got their pockets lined in attempts to gain favor with Trump and Obama.
The case drew attention due to Pras’ fame as an artist and then acquired extra scrutiny from social media recently when he seemingly admitted to being a federal informant while on the stand. It’s a claim his legal team denies.
Pras testified that Low gave him $20 million back in 2012 for the rapper to get a picture of himself and then President Obama. However, prosecutors say Pras took $800,000 of those funds to donate to Obama’s campaign on the low—no pun intended. Then in 2017, Low again got Pras to donate funds to Trump in order to urge the dropping of an investigation into his financial dealings. Pras defense was that it was his money to spend and that the $100 million the feds claim was for Trump influence was actually an investment to start a new media company.
Clearly, the jury called cap.
“We are extremely disappointed in that result but are very, very confident in the ultimate outcome of this case,” reportedly said Pras’ attorney, David Kenner, to reporters. “If we do move to a sentencing hearing I remain very confident we will certainly appeal this case. This is not over.”
Pras is facing more than 20 years in prison when he is sentenced at a yet undetermined date. As for Low, he’s reportedly somewhere in China.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Pras, also known as Pras Michel of Fugees fame, found himself at the center of a global conspiracy case where it became assumed that the rapper became an informant to the FBI. While that fact is currently being debunked by Pras’ legal team, that hasn’t stopped Twitter from roasting his Fugees bandmates Wyclef Jean and Ms. Lauryn Hill with John Forte catching strays in the process.
Pras Michel was recently in Washington to take the stand in his federal conspiracy trial where he faces up to 22 years in prison for allegedly involving himself in a global money laundering scheme and working with a foreign nation to influence U.S. government matters.
Pras did admit on the stand that he spoke with FBI agents regarding his connection to Malaysian financier and fugitive, Jho Low.
After examining the case further, Michel is actually on trial because he took Low’s money to the tune of millions and reentered a portion of those funds into President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and then attempted to ask the Trump Administration to move away from investigating Kow and extradite Chinese businessman, Guo Wengui who was connected to former Trump ally, Steve Bannon.
Hip-Hop Wired also received a statement this week from Michel’s legal team correcting the perception that their client turned informant.
From the statement:
Simply stated, if Pras had been an informant for the government, he wouldn’t be on trial right now. The government does not prosecute and threaten its informants with more than two decades of jail time.
Pras never was an “informant” for the FBI.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and the reckless suggestion that he was an informant carries life-threatening implications in hip-hop circles.
During a portion of Pras’ nearly two days of testimony last week, Pras described from the stand a decision he made a handful of years ago to approach the FBI in regard to a narrow issue related to his wider case.
In law enforcement parlance, an “informant” is someone who works directly with an investigating law enforcement agency either to cut a deal for him or herself, or with the direct interests of that law enforcement agency as part of their own agenda.
As it stands, Twitter won’t care about all of that legal mumbo jumbo and is always hellbent on getting those jokes off. We’ve got some of them listed below.
—
Photo: Tasos Katopodis / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Pras Michel is at the center of an explosive federal conspiracy trial unfolding in Washington in connection to an alleged Malaysian embezzler who wanted a photo with former President Barack Obama. The Fugees rapper took the stand this week and claimed that he became an informant for the FBI after his dealings with Low Taek, also known as Jho Low, began to head into murky territory.
Pras Michel, 50, was inside the U.S. District Court in Washington on Tuesday (April 18) when he took the stand in the conspiracy trial where he faces charges of money laundering, campaign finance violations, and other related charges in what authorities say was a sham to cover the $4.5 billion Low, 41, allegedly stole from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The most detailed accounts of Michel’s testimony came by way of Katie Buehler, a reporter for Law360 who covers court cases in Washington. In a series of tweets, Buehler was able to encapsulate how bizarre it is that a former top-charting rapper is at the center of a conspiracy case with global implications.
“Ex-Fugees rapper Pras Michel has taken the witness stand and is seemingly trying to charm the jury. Before answering any questions, he conducted a microphone check, saying, “Mic check 1, 2” twice. He also said “bless you” after an observer in the courtroom sneezed,” read the first tweet of a thread that broke down Michel’s testimony.
It was followed with, “Michel, who is accused of conspiring to funnel foreign money into and assert influence over American politics, explained he grew up in a strict, religious household and that his fame with the Fugees saw him go “from being on the streets of New York to Park Avenue overnight.”
Michel said he first met Low in 2006 in a New York nightclub where the businessman displayed reckless spending and exceptional wealth adding in his testimony that Low’s actions were, “something I’ve never witnessed in my life.”
Low essentially employed Michel to arrange the photo opportunity with President Obama by way of an Obama fundraising official who has decided not to testify by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights despite not facing charges.
According to Michel, he pocketed around $12 million and used $2 million of the cash Low gave him to attend an Obama fundraiser and somehow make the photo happen. The fundraising official instructed Michel to keep Low away from the fundraiser and then received another $20 million from Low for a chance at the photo.
The thread from the reporter ends with Michel saying he met with federal agents in New York in connection to Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman arrested on money laundering, fraud, and other charges that China wanted to be extradited.
“I took it upon myself to report because I thought the FBI should know,” Michel said on the stand.
Read the entire thread below.
—
Photo: Tasos Katopodis / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Kevork Djansezian / Getty
Pras is fighting one of the most high profile cases this year. So high profile that Leonardo DiCaprio has testified at the trial.
As spotted on Digital Music News The Fugees member is facing some very serious charges. The Department Of Justice alleges that in 2012 he aided in the transferring millions of dollars in donations to the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign. The DOJ says that the funds were disguised at legitimate contributions to help the then democrat win the race but in actuality the monies were stolen from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad via Malaysian financier Jho Low.
On Monday, April 3 the critically acclaimed actor took the stand to detail his dealings with Low throughout the years. “He had a multitude of different parties,” he revealed. “Some of them were on boats. Some were at nightclubs, dinners”. Low also made contributions to get Wolf Of Wall Street made to which the thespian had to answer to. But to hear Leo tell it; it was Low’s team who he dealt with when it came to matters of any financing. “My understanding was I was given the green light by my team, as well as the studio, to accept financing from Mr. Low”.
Leonardo DiCaprio says he has been social with Pras since meeting him backstage at a concert years back. Pras had pled not guilty to the charges and his lawyer is David Kenner; the same legal eagle who represented Suge Knight, 2Pac, Death Row Records and now reportedly represents Tory Lanez.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty
Pras is finally speaking up regarding some charges he is facing. He denies being apart of a international financial conspiracy.
As spotted on Vulture The Fugees founding member is claiming he had no parts of one of the world’s most infamous scandals. In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Business Week Magazine he gives his side of the story that in essence reads likes a James Bond spy caper. He says back in 2017 he was summoned to a midtown Manhattan hotel for a secret meeting with Sun Lijun, China’s vice minister of public security.
His account is that he formed a relationship Jho Low, a Malaysian fugitive businessman. The federal authorities claim Pras eventually started funneling Low’s money which reportedly included funds being donated to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign (a crime for a foreign national). But Low had allegedly been embezzling funds from the Malaysian fund 1MDB and the feds soon came for the “How Many Mics” rapper and seized a whopping $95 million dollars from him.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Pras on May 10, 2019, for his part in an alleged criminal conspiracy with Low. In June 2021, Pras was charged by a federal grand jury for running a back-channel campaign to get the Trump administration to drop an investigation of Jho Low and the 1MDB investment company. He was also accused of advocating for the extradition of a Chinese dissident, Guo Wengui, from the United States.
Pras has refused a plea deal. His trial will start March 27.
-
Pages
