Fugees rapper Pras Michel turned himself in to authorities at the Federal Correctional Institution in Safford, Ariz. on Thursday (April 30) to begin a 14-year sentence tied to his April 2023 conviction on 10 counts, including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., witness tampering and illegal foreign lobbying.
In January, a judge denied Michel’s request to stay out of prison while appealing the conviction tied to the MC’s long-running case in which authorities said he participated in a failed conspiracy to help Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho (aka Jho Low) and the Chinese government gain access to U.S. officials. Prosecutors said that the conspiracy included Low paying the Fugees member (born Prakazrel Michel) $20 million in 2012 to get a picture with then-president Barack Obama, which prosecutors said Michel then turned into an $800,000 donation funneled into Obama’s campaign through a number of straw donors.
The sentence was originally delayed until March, with the judge subsequently pushing the surrender date back 30 more days.
“Today is a painful day for Pras, for his family, and for everyone who believes in a fair system of justice,” Michel spokesperson Erica Dumas said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Pras honors the legal process as he reports to begin his sentence. The FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act)-related charges that led to his conviction are being vigorously contested on appeal, and his legal team believes the record will show that his rights were violated and the truth was obscured. This chapter is difficult but it is not his final one.”
Six months after his conviction, Michel filed for a new trial over claims that former lawyer David Kenner had used an unproven AI tool to help write his closing arguments in the trial, resulting in a deeply flawed presentation. The judge denied the request and formally sentenced Michel to 14 years in federal prison in October 2025.
Michel, 53, was indicted in 2019 of making illegal contributions to Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, later tacking on bank fraud, concealment of material facts, witness tampering around alleged efforts to block an investigation into Low’s financial misdeeds, FARA violations and acting as an unregistered agent for China connected to efforts to persuade the U.S. to extradite a Chinese dissident. Leonardo DiCaprio was among the people who testified in Michel’s trial in connection with Low providing some of the financing for the actor’s 2013 Martin Scosese-directed film The Wolf of Wall Street.
Jho Low is accused of pulling off one of the biggest financial scams in modern history, with authorities alleging that he misappropriated more than $4.5 billion from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state development fund; at press time, Low, the subject of a massive global manhunt, was still on the run, his whereabouts unknown.
While awaiting the beginning of his sentence, Michel attended Ye’s April 3 show in Los Angeles, where he watched his bandmate Lauryn Hill perform with West on stage. In March of this year, Michel dropped his lawsuit against Hill in which he accused the “Nothing Even Matters” singer of charges including that she exploited his ongoing legal troubles to get him to agree to a Fugees reunion tour.
