{"id":14849,"date":"2025-11-22T04:51:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=14849"},"modified":"2025-11-22T04:51:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T04:51:28","slug":"fugees-rapper-pras-michel-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison-over-illegal-campaign-donations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=14849","title":{"rendered":"Fugees Rapper Pras Michel Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison over Illegal Campaign Donations"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, DC<\/span><\/span><\/b> \u2014 Grammy-winning rapper <\/span><\/span>Prakazrel \u201cPras\u201d Michel<\/span><\/span><\/b> of the Fugees was sentenced to <\/span><\/span>14 years in federal prison<\/span><\/span><\/b> on Thursday for a conviction involving the illegal funneling of millions of dollars in <\/span><\/span>foreign contributions<\/span><\/span><\/b> to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Michel, 52, declined to address US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly before the verdict.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span><\/span>April 2023<\/span><\/span><\/b> , a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including <\/span><\/span>conspiracy<\/span><\/span><\/b> and <\/span><\/span>acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government<\/span><\/span><\/b> .<\/span><\/span> The high-profile trial in Washington, DC, featured testimony from notable figures, including actor <\/span><\/span>Leonardo DiCaprio<\/span><\/span><\/b> and former Attorney General <\/span><\/span>Jeff Sessions<\/span><\/span><\/b> .<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Justice Department argued that federal judgment guidelines recommended a <\/span>life sentence<\/span><\/b> for Michel, stating he \u201cbetrayed his country for money\u201d and \u201clied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.\u201d They argued that his sentence should reflect the “breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Michel’s defense attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, called the 14-year sentence <\/span>\u201ccompletely disproportionate to the offense.\u201d<\/span><\/b> Zeidenberg had recommended a three-year sentence. Michel’s legal team had previously argued in a court filing that a life sentence would be an \u201cabsurdly high\u201d punishment, typically reserved for “deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders.” The defense criticizes the government’s position, writing, “The Government’s position is one that would cause Inspector Javert to recoil and… simply illustrates just how easily the Guidelines can be manipulated to produce absurd results.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, DC \u2014 Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel \u201cPras\u201d Michel of the Fugees was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison on Thursday for a conviction involving the illegal funneling of millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Michel, 52, declined to address US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly before the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}