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WASHINGTON (AP) – A founding member of the 1990s hip-hop group, the Fugees, has been indicted in a campaign finance plot that took place in the 2012 presidential election, announced Friday. the Department of Justice.
A four-count indictment charges Prakazrel "Pras" Michel with conspiring with the fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, commonly known as Jho Low, to conceal contributions foreign country. 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 by the fact 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 is anxiously waiting for the case to be heard by a jury. "
Low's representatives said in a statement that he was innocent and that the charges against him "are unfounded".
"Mr. Low has never made campaign contributions directly or indirectly to the United States and he unequivocally denies any involvement in or alleged knowledge of these alleged activities," the statement said.
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 art works and to finance the movie "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.
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This story has been corrected to show that Ng was extradited earlier this month, a few years ago.
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