A decide dominated Pras Michel faces 15 to 19½ years in jail after siding with prosecutors on key sentencing enhancements.

Pras Michel’s sentencing prospects grew way more severe this week after a Washington, D.C., decide dominated the previous Fugees rapper faces between 15 and 19½ years in federal jail for his position in a sprawling overseas lobbying and marketing campaign finance conspiracy tied to Malaysian billionaire Jho Low.

In an 18-page order filed November 4, 2025, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly settled a long-running dispute between federal prosecutors and Michel’s protection crew over the right way to calculate his punishment below federal sentencing tips.

The ruling, which doesn’t impose a closing sentence, determines the severity of Michel’s punishment when sentencing takes place later this yr.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly sided with prosecutors on a number of key enhancements, agreeing that Michel obstructed justice, laundered illicit funds, and acted as an unregistered overseas agent.

Those findings established a sentencing vary of roughly 15 to 19½ years, a major setback for the protection, which had argued Michel ought to face not more than 5 to 6 years.

Michel’s attorneys had claimed the Grammy-winning artist was “a political novice manipulated by foreign billionaires and self-serving intermediaries,” and that his conduct didn’t warrant such extreme penalties.

But the decide disagreed, writing that the protection’s argument “understates the severity of the offenses and the defendant’s role in advancing them.”

The choice follows Michel’s 2023 conviction on 10 felony counts, together with conspiracy, unlawful overseas lobbying, witness tampering, and marketing campaign finance violations.

Prosecutors stated he took tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from Low, a fugitive financier accused of looting Malaysia’s 1MDB fund and funneling it into U.S. political donations to curry favor with former President Barack Obama and President Trump and different authorities officers.

This is the most recent authorized setback for Pras.

Last week, the court also ordered Michel to forfeit at least $64,923,226, finding that amount to represent illicit proceeds he obtained through the foreign lobbying and concealment scheme.

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