John Keller, a former Department of Justice employee who was the lead prosecutor during the trial, said in a statement to The Washington Post that the sentence reflects the gravity of Mich\u00e9l\u2019s efforts \u201cto manipulate decision-making at the highest levels of our government, for profit and on behalf of foreign interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant engaged in multiple schemes to illegally influence two United States Presidents and laundered US$100m \u2026 in the process, most of which he kept for himself,\u201d Keller wrote.<\/p>\n
Mich\u00e9l\u2019s attorneys told the Post they plan to appeal. \u201cWe believe the verdict was unsupported by the evidence and that the sentence is completely disproportional to the facts alleged, particularly when compared to his co-defendants, all of whom were intimately involved in the same alleged scheme,\u201d wrote Peter Zeidenberg, one of the attorneys.<\/p>\n
One of the other defendants in the case was pardoned, another was sentenced to three months of probation and another received two years in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere simply is no justification for Mr Michel being singled out like this except for the penalty for opting for trial,\u201d Zeidenberg said.<\/p>\n
Randy Zelin, another member of the defence team, said in a statement that he was \u201cdevastated\u201d to see the sentence. \u201cPersonally, I grew fond of Pras, and it was easy to zealously advocate for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mich\u00e9l was one of the three members of the Fugees, whose blend of rap, reggae and R&B diverged from popular gangster rap music in the 1990s and led to the group\u2019s meteoric rise. The group, which included Mich\u00e9l\u2019s childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, won two Grammys in 1997 for its critically acclaimed sophomore album The Score, which sold more than 22 million copies, and its hit cover of Killing Me Softly With His Song.<\/p>\n
After the group split, Mich\u00e9l established a career as a documentary producer and entrepreneur. Jean continued his recording career and got involved in humanitarian and political efforts. And Hill went on to have a successful solo career, becoming the first hip-hop artist to win an album of the year Grammy for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Keller, a former Department of Justice employee who was the lead prosecutor during the trial, said in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8132,68460,99481,74,81708,1738,6965,21137,28318,33489,156,4999,71,99479,6276,209,85068,16484,2205,99477,28317,2442,17576,99476,111,139,69,16941,99480,1523,51797,99478,97998,8442,56639,5161,1335,34862,1361,54,1530],"class_list":["post-148751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-14year","tag-1990s","tag-99481","tag-after","tag-barack","tag-campaign","tag-contributions","tag-criminal","tag-dicaprio","tag-donations","tag-entertainment","tag-friday","tag-from","tag-fugees","tag-gets","tag-group","tag-hiphop","tag-illegal","tag-involved","tag-jho","tag-leonardo","tag-links","tag-low","tag-michl","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-obama","tag-obamas","tag-over","tag-performed","tag-prakazrel","tag-pras","tag-prison","tag-reelection","tag-sentenced","tag-term","tag-testimony","tag-that","tag-trial","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}