As D.C. judge eyes evidentiary hearing, Pras Michel says Fugees reunion tour is 'like therapy'
Convicted of 10 federal felonies, rapper Pras Michel is on tour with his longtime Fugees friends as his new lawyers try to win him a new trial. I talked to him backstage.
During rap legend Lauryn Hill’s recent concert at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, the only sign of one of the performer’s legal troubles was at the merchandise booths.
White and black “Free Pras” t-shirts and sweatshirts sold for $50 and $130 alongside t-shirts commemorating the 25th anniversary of Hill’s celebrated album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and her reunion tour with Prakazrel “Pras” Michel and Wyclef Jean of the pioneering 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees.
For now, Pras is free, but he’s also fighting a federal court battle in Washington, D.C., that threatens to send him to prison for up to 20 years. He’s already lost the biggest round: A jury in April convicted him of 10 felonies for an international political conspiracy with a Malaysian billionaire involving money laundering, foreign lobbying, illegal campaign donations, and, after the first indictment, witness tampering by Pras.
The convictions kept the 51-year-old rapper out of Canada when he was due in Toronto for an Oct. 26 concert with Lauryn and Wyclef, and they’ll keep him out again for the Dec. 12 concert in Vancouver. But he’s hoping a new effort by his post-conviction lawyers will allow him to tour with his longtime friends well into the future: Along with a motion for new trial, his legal team at ArentFox Schiff LLP has a motion for acquittal pending that alleges the evidence at trial “fell woefully short of proving Michel’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“You just gotta trust the process. And I trust the process,” Pras told me in an exclusive interview. “I believe, you know, what’s gonna be is gonna be. So I’m optimistically positive about whatever the outcome is going to be.”
Pras, out of custody on his personal recognizance, spoke with me before taking the stage at Crypto on Nov. 4, where he ran through Fugees hits I’ve known since I was in seventh grade at Western View Middle School in Corvallis, Oregon, listening to The Score debut album in 1996. They included “Vocab,” which features one of Pras’ most-impressive raps (As Lauryn says, “Hey yo Pras grab the mic and show you got the gift of gab.”), and other Score favorites such as “The Mask” and “Fu-Gee-la.” Pras also performed his 1998 smash “Ghetto Superstar.”
Asked if his legal situation is distracting, Pras indicated it’s his tour that’s the welcome distraction. He said it “came at a great place.”
“The tour is great. Everybody’s feeling good. And it’s thet thing, you know? It’s like therapy,” he told me.
The same weekend, federal prosecutors in Washington D.C. were finalizing their opposition to two major post-conviction motions from Pras that could determine the scope of the Fugees’ touring abilities for years to come. Spanning 66 pages, the filings oppose Pras’ new trial and acquittal motions, outlining trial evidence that prosecutors said included Pras’ own “damning” testimony.
One asks Senior U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to force Pras to disclose communications with his trial team because of Pras’ claims that his now ex-lawyer David Kenner’s work was so bad it amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel and warrants a new trial.
In a new filing late Monday, Pras’ new lawyers said prosecutors in their oppositions don’t “actually assert that Michel received a fair trial.”
“It was clear throughout the trial that Kenner failed to effectively represent Michel. Kenner was unfamiliar with the facts and allegations, developed no legitimate theories, themes, or defenses, and was ignorant of the rules of evidence,” according to the 32-page reply to prosecutor’s opposition to the motion for new trial signed by ArentFox partner Peter Zeidenberg. “The Government took full advantage, introducing all manner of improper and inadmissible evidence throughout the trial, resulting in a one-sided proceeding replete with extraordinary errors and unfair prejudice.”
Judges don’t often grant criminal defendants new trials after they’ve been convicted, and post-conviction acquittals are even more unusual.
But Pras’ case isn’t typical, and Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who presided over the blockbuster, three-week trial, has already signaled she’s interested in his new lawyers’ arguments about Kenner’s shoddy performance by scheduling a Dec. 14 evidentiary hearing.
Los Angeles criminal defense attorney John Hanusz, who is not involved in the case, said the evidentiary hearing is “not surprising.”
“Although it is rare for ineffectiveness claims to be raised in a motion for new trial – because trial counsel is usually still on the case at this stage – when they are, it is entirely appropriate to hold an evidentiary hearing,” Hanusz told me in an email. “It is certainly an efficient and prudent course of action, as the trial proceedings are fresh in the judge’s mind, witnesses are available to testify, and, were the motion to be granted, it would obviate the need for an appeal at this point.”
Hanusz said a defendant bringing a new trial or acquittal motion “has the burden to demonstrate that the government doesn’t have the goods or that the verdict is otherwise deeply flawed by errors occurring at trial.”
“Although the burden is heavy, it is certainly not insurmountable,” Hanusz said.
Kenner is 82 and has been a licensed attorney in California since 1968. Kollar-Kotelly is 80 and was nominated to the federal bench in 1997 by President Bill Clinton.
She often was upset with Kenner, according to reports from trial, including tweets from a Mother Jones reporter who said Pras’ team “has begun presenting their case, with some difficulty.”
“Pras’ lawyer David Kenner, who often seems befuddled, has drawn a zillion objections and pissed off Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly,” reporter Dan Friedman wrote.
Friedman quoted the judge telling Kenner, “Mr. Kenner, this is not how you operate. You don’t bring in new exhibits [without notice]. We’re wasting an extraordinary amount of time.”
Amid plea deals, Pras goes to trial w/ David Kenner
Pras was first indicted in May 2019 alongside Low Taek Jho, the Malaysian billionaire accused of conspiring to influence then-President Donald Trump’s administration to abandon a U.S. Department of Justice investigation related to the embezzlement of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad investment fund. Pras and Low also are accused of funneling millions of dollars of Low’s money to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and conspiring to lobby the Trump administration to deport a political target of the Republic of China.
Low remains a fugitive, while three others charged in the scheme took plea deals: Elliot Broidy, who was finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2008; Nickie Mali Lum Davis, a Hawaii woman whose parents pleaded guilty in 1997 to a fundraising scheme involving then-President Clinton; and George Higginbotham, a former senior congressional affairs specialist with the Department of Justice.
Broidy, who was pardoned by Trump in January 2021, testified for the prosecution at Pras’ trial, as did Higginbotham, whose cooperation helped earn him an exceptionally lenient sentence of three months probation from Judge Kollar-Kotelly last week. He also must forfeit $70,000.
Michel was the only defendant to take his case to a jury, and he did it with a lawyer well-known in the hip-hop world but little experienced in the complex legal arena of white-collar crime. Kenner successfully defended rap icon Snoop Dogg in his 1996 murder trial, and he was a go-to lawyer for Suge Knight and Death Row Records pictured partying with Tupac Shakur in the 1990s.
But Pras’ new lawyers say Kenner also lacked “any relevant experience for a complex case of this nature.”
“His general criminal practice, which involved defending charges of assault, robbery, homicide, false imprisonment, burglary, drug offenses, DUIs, and reckless driving, did not qualify him for this case,” according to Pras’ new trial motion.
The motion alleges a litany of errors by Kenner, with the main argument riding on the fact that jurors learned in trial that a judge had ruled the crime-fraud exception applied to Michel’s communication with Higginbotham, which otherwise would be covered by attorney-client privilege because Higginbotham was giving Michel legal advice.
Prosecutors were allowed to elicit the information from a federal agent in cross-examination after Kenner repeatedly implied in direct-exam that investigators improperly intruded upon Michel’s attorney-client privilege with Higginbotham.
“The mention of, and basis for, the Crime-Fraud Order was necessary to remediate any harm caused by defense counsel’s own questioning,” prosecutors said in their 38-page opposition to Pras’ motion for new trial.
Kollar-Kotelly also told jurors that certain statements had been deemed admissible as conspirator statements, which, coupled with the crime-fraud order, resulted in jurors being “aware that two federal judges— the grand jury judge and the presiding judge—believed Michel was guilty, which is literally unprecedented,” Pras’ lawyers said.
“The jury no doubt felt constrained to find Michel guilty because an acquittal would have been at odds with the views of two federal judges,” according to the reply in support of the new trial motion.
‘Dirty cash,’ but what was Pras’ intent?
Along with Free Pras t-shits and sweatshirts, merchandise booths at Crypto sold black sweatshirts with Pras’ face on them. They included his name and the phrase “dirty cash,” which is both his nickname, the name of one of his solo songs from his 1998 Ghetto Superstar album and a window into the role prosecutors say he played as essentially Low’s financial middle man.
Prosecutors say Pras’ 2012 contributions to Obama came from more than $2 million in Low’s money, while the DOJ lobbying effort included Low paying Michel more than $100 million in 2017.
But Pras’ post-conviction lawyers say Kenner failed to explore an obvious defense: That Pras was not acting on behalf of either Low or China when he spent the money. Kenner allowed Michel to testify without properly preparing him, according to the motion for new trial, and “the resulting prejudice was devastating.”
“Kenner failed to ask Michel about the most critical and damaging facts of the case in order to permit Michel to explain his actions and why he took them, instead leaving it to the Government to bring them up during a damaging cross-examination,” according to the motion. “And Kenner failed to ask Michel the most basic and fundamental questions about his intent and state of mind which, if believed, would have provided the jury with a reason, if they believed him, to acquit.”
Pras’ new lawyers also say prosecutors had no evidence Low knew it’s illegal for foreigners such as him to donate to U.S. political campaigns, which would have been his entire motive for using Pras as a conduit. Instead, they allege prosecutors essentially tried to trick the jury into thinking Low received the same legal warning about foreign donations that Pras had when they were invited to a June 2012 fundraising dinner for Obama in Florida.
“By the Government’s clever and careful questioning of its lead case agent—which was at best misleading—the jury was led to believe that Low received the two-page invitation with the legal warning when that was not the case,” according to Pras’ 44-page motion for acquittal.
Pras declined to discuss the details of his case when I met with him in his dressing room before he took the stage at Crypto.com Arena, but his publicist, Erica Dumas, told me, “Trust in our justice system is vital and any misconduct undermines public faith.”
Pras’ new lawyers said Monday that prosecutors failed to address the issue in their opposition to to the acquittal motion.
“By failing to address Michel’s argument, the Government concedes that it misled the jury in this way,” Pras’ new lawyers wrote, adding in a footnote: “Even if the Court were to deny the Motion for Judgment of Acquittal on Count 1, the Government’s concession that it manipulated key evidence on this count at a minimum warrants a new trial.”
‘If you’re going through hell, keep going’
Part of the Dec. 14 evidentiary haring in Washington D.C. will explore Pras’ claims that Kenner had a “financial interest” in an artificial intelligence program that he used to draft his closing argument. His new lawyers also allege Kenner had a personal stake in seeing Michel convicted to “curry favor” in a criminal contempt of court proceeding against him over evidence he disclosed to Bloomberg News reporters.
Neil Katz, co-founder of EyeLevel.AI, which makes the AI program Kenner used in trial, told me in a YouTube Live interview that Kenner merely used the program for assistance and does not have a financial stake in the program.
Pras’ new lawyers said Monday that’s not the point. The point is Kenner’s closing was terrible.
“Whether the closing argument was the product of Kenner’s use of AI or his own creation does not impact the fact that the closing argument was the result of ineffective assistance of counsel, as it ignored virtually all of Michel’s most obvious and compelling defenses and instead made frivolous and counter-productive arguments,” according to the reply in support of the motion for new trial.
They also said prosecutors’ filing “strongly suggests that Kenner is still operating under a conflict of interest and aiming to curry favor with the prosecution” regarding his contempt case.
“The docket in the contempt proceeding indicates that the contempt prosecutors continue to investigate Kenner for the alleged leak, and the prosecutors have obtained four continuances to support its continued investigation. It is unclear from the docket if the prosecutors intend to bring charges beyond mere contempt. Meanwhile, Kenner’s counsel appears to be cooperating with the prosecution in this case—still currying favor—as the prosecution indicates in its Opposition that Kenner’s counsel notified the prosecution of a subpoena Kenner received just hours before the Government filed its Opposition.”
Kenner did not return my email seeking comment, nor did his lawyer in his contempt case, L. Barrett Boss of Cozen O'Connor in Washington D.C.
Monday’s filings are the final filings before the evidentiary hearing on Dec. 14, though a video status conference is scheduled for Nov. 30 in Kenner’s contempt of court case.
Pras will be preparing for a Dec. 1 concert in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Lauryn and Wyclef after a Nov. 29 concert in Nashville, Tennessee.
He told me being on the road “brings back memories.”
“It makes you remember why you did this. Before the fame. Before the money. I wanted to make some good music, wanted to represent Haiti, you know. The time we came up, Haiti wasn’t in a good light, you know?” Pras said. (Pras’ parents moved from Haiti to the U.S. before he was born, and Wyclef immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti when he was 9.)
He said he takes the stage “with a great amount of gratitude.”
“We were just talking about, you know, all the artists that came around the same time we came out that had great music at the time, and who survived after 25 plus years? We counted our hands, there’s only like five of us who are still around,” Pras said.
Pras told me he met Lauryn when he was 14 and she was 11. They went to school together in Maplewood, New Jersey.
“Never in our wildest dreams would you ever think that this is going to last this long,” he said. “We didn’t even think we were gonna put anything out. We just believed we would, you know? And to see, you know, this young generation coming out and singing our songs and the energy still there.”
He said the Fugees “took hip-hop and just elevated it a little bit more as far as, like, the musicality of it and, you know, the versatility of it.”
“Being able to go international at that time and expanding it, you know? That’s the beauty of the hip hop 50,” Pras continued, referring to 2023 being the 50th anniversary of hip-hop music.
“You think about the very first hip-hop record and how it evolved to 2023. To me, hip-hop is the modern-day rock and roll,” he continued.
Pras said the new generation will “continue to just keep passing the baton and just keep growing and growing and growing.”
“So what’s great about hip hop is just when you think, ‘Oh, it’s kind of still now,’ it evolves into something, right?” Pras said. He references Afrobeats and Reggae music and “Reggaeton, the way it’s been influenced by hip-hop.”
“They took a piece of us and then they evolved into their own genre. That’s all because of hip hop. There’s no other genre that can do that,” Pras continued.
Asked what he wants people to know about his situation, he said, “I just want people to come and enjoy the tour. As far as my situation? Pray for me, you know what I mean? That’s all anybody can do. But again, I trust the process. I believe in the process. I have a great team around me.”
He said his close supporters mean a lot to him.
“You can have a million people who love you, and it’s false love. And you have 10 that really do love you genuinely. And that 10 is equivalent to 5 million people. You know what I mean? Because that love is so strong.”
Pras said Winston Churchill, the late British prime minister, “said it best” when he said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
He said he’s “just waiting to see what the conclusion is going to be.”
“In the meantime, I mean, listen, I’m enjoying my time right now. Because I could have been sitting home,” Pras told me.
He said he wishes everyone a great holiday season.
“Enjoy the rest of the year, and I hope I see them again next year,” Pras said. “I want to thank everyone who supports and everyone who’s gonna read this. Thank you. Keep me in your prayers.”
Stay tuned for more coverage of Pras’ post-conviction proceedings.
Court documents:
Peter Zeidenberg’s declaration
Contempt motion for order to show cause
Transcript from May 11 contempt hearing
Previous coverage:
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