Pras Michel, a member of the 1990’s hip-hop group the Fugees, arrives at U.S. District Court on April 3, 2023 in Washington, DC. Michel is on trial for his alleged participation in a campaign finance conspiracy. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
*Pras Michel is pushing for a new trial after being convicted on fraud charges earlier this year.
The hip-hop star claims his legal team used an experimental artificial intelligence program to minimize legal work. We reported previously that Pras was convicted in April on ten criminal counts “of funneling money from a now-fugitive Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, then trying to squelch a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration,” according to the AP.
Pras — who’s currently on the road with Lauryn Hill and The Fugees — faces up to 20 years in prison.
Per a report from Politico, the outlet writes: “In a withering motion filed Monday night with a federal judge in Washington, Michel’s new attorneys argued that his Los Angeles-based lawyer David Kenner relied on the fledgling technology at critical points in Michel’s trial, contributing to “prejudicial ineffective assistance of counsel.”
Here’s more from the court docs: Kenner “used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes, and he then publicly boasted that the AI program ‘turned hours or days of legal work into seconds,’” Michel’s new defense team from D.C.-based ArentFox Schiff wrote.
Pras during Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Fundraiser at PM in New York, United States. (Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/FilmMagic)
“It is now apparent that Kenner and his co-counsel appear to have had an undisclosed financial stake in the AI program, and they experimented with it during Michel’s trial so they could issue a press release afterward promoting the program — a clear conflict of interest.”
Pras alleges in the suit that Kenner “overlooked nearly every colorable defense” and “failed to object to damaging and inadmissible testimony.”
“Michel’s prior publicist also informed members of the current defense team that Kenner proudly stated at the end of the trial words to the effect of ‘AI wrote our closing,’” former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg wrote in a declaration accompanying the motion, per Politico.
Pras said in a motion for a new trial that he had been the subject of “ineffective representation” from his Kenner.
READ MORE: Pras Taking Legal Action Against 50 Cent and Kyrie Irving Over ‘Rat’ Label
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