A former Fugees rapper accused of channeling foreign money in 2012

May 12, 2019, 19:41 UTC

By Associated press

WASHINGTON – One of the founding members of the 1990s hip-hop band, the Fugees, has been indicted in a campaign finance plot that took place in the 2012 presidential election, announced Friday. the Ministry of Justice.

A four-count indictment charges Prakazrel "Pras" Michel with conspiring with Malaysian fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, commonly known as Jho Low, to conceal foreign campaign contributions. He allegedly used straw donors to donate campaign money to a US presidential candidate, identified in the indictment only as Candidate A.

Low has attracted attention in recent years after US officials accused him of leading a money laundering and corruption scheme that stole billions of dollars from the fund investment from the Malaysian state called 1MDB. US and Malaysian officials have charged him separately for the alleged fraud, but he is still on the run.

Prosecutors allege that from June to November 2012, Low had ordered that more than $ 21.6 million be transferred from foreign entities to Michel 's accounts in order to pay money into the bank account. Presidential election of 2012. They added that Michel had then paid about 20 straw donors and ducts so that they could make donations on their behalf and conceal the origin of the money, according to the Charge deed.

More than $ 1 million has also been sent to an independent spending committee, prosecutors said.

"Mr. Michel is extremely disappointed that so many years after the government laid charges related to contributions to the 2012 election campaign," said defense lawyer Barry Pollack. "Mr Michel is innocent of these accusations and looks forward to the case being heard by a jury."

Representatives of Low said in a statement that he was innocent and that the charges against him "have no basis on the facts".

"Mr. Low has never made campaign contributions directly or indirectly to the United States and he unequivocally denies any involvement in or knowledge of these activities," the statement said.

Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a non-profit campaign finance monitoring group, said his organization and another had filed a complaint against Michel with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice.

"It is quite unusual to bring the government to prosecute the financing of criminal campaigns," he said. "On the other hand, we thought that it was a clear case in which an execution was required."

Michel faces a separate civil forfeiture claim accusing him in a ploy to get the ministry to abandon an investigation into a misappropriation of funds from a Malaysian investment fund. Michel denied having committed a wrongdoing in this case.

The embezzlement of the fund, known as 1MDB, has become a political scandal in Malaysia. The looted money was used to buy jewelry and luxury items and to finance the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" and other Hollywood productions. Last year, the Justice Department announced lawsuits against Jho Low and two former Goldman Sachs bankers as part of a money laundering and bribery scheme that was stealing from the bankruptcy court. 39, money on the fund, created to stimulate economic development projects in this country.

One of these bankers, Roger Ng, was extradited from Malaysia earlier this month to face charges in New York.