Pras Michel is doing his best to avoid the cold walls of a federal prison, but the government wants him behind bars – ASAP.
Federal prosecutors say the Fugees rapper, who was convicted on ten criminal counts for his role in a multimillion-dollar political influence scheme, should report to prison immediately instead of waiting for his appeal to play out.
Michel was sentenced in November to 14 years in the bing for what prosecutors called “a litany of crimes.” He’s supposed to surrender on January 27, but his lawyers are begging for bail, arguing his appeal could overturn the conviction.
The Justice Department fired back this week, saying Michel’s request is a stall tactic that ignores how “the law has shifted from a presumption of release to a presumption of valid conviction.”
The filing makes it clear that federal prosecutors have zero interest in letting Michel enjoy another day of freedom. They say the evidence against him was overwhelming, including cooperating witnesses, text messages, contracts, and his own trial testimony.
The jury found him guilty of funneling foreign money from Malaysian billionaire Jho Low into Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, then lying to federal investigators and later acting as an unregistered agent for China when he tried to influence Donald Trump.
Michel’s team insists he got bad advice from his trial lawyer, who famously bragged about using artificial intelligence to help pick his strategy, but the judge already ruled that claim didn’t come close to proving ineffective assistance.
The same goes for Michel’s arguments that jurors were swayed by courtroom rulings; the court said any issues were harmless given the evidence stacked against him. They argue that the law doesn’t allow a convicted defendant to sit at home while challenging a verdict unless there’s a clear likelihood of reversal, which they say Michel lacks.
For now, Michel’s legal team is hoping the D.C. Circuit will step in before his surrender date, but the government’s message is blunt: the music star’s time is up, and it’s time to trade designer clothes for a prison jumpsuit.