Six months after ex-Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel was convicted on foreign lobbying charges, he’s now demanding a new trial — making the extraordinary claim that his ex-lawyer used an unproven artificial intelligence (AI) tool to craft closing arguments because he owned a stake in the tech platform.
In a Monday (Oct. 16) filing in D.C. federal court, Michel claimed attorney David Kenner “utterly failed” him during the April trial, denying him his constitutional right to effective counsel. Among other shortcomings, the rapper said Kenner outsourced prep work to “inexperienced contract attorneys” and “failed to object to damaging and inadmissible testimony” during the trial.
Most unusual of all, Michel accused Kenner of using “an experimental artificial intelligence program” to draft his closing arguments for the trial, resulting in a deeply flawed presentation. And he claimed Kenner did so because he had an “undisclosed financial stake” in the company and wanted to use Michel’s trial to promote it.
“Michel never had a chance,” the rapper’s new lawyers wrote Monday. “Michel’s counsel was deficient throughout, likely more focused on promoting his AI program … than zealously defending Michel. The net effect was an unreliable verdict.”
Kenner did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
Michel was charged in 2019 with funneling money from a now-fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He was also accused of trying to squelch a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration.
In April, following a trial that included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Michel was convicted on 10 counts including conspiracy, witness tampering and failing to register as an agent of China.
During that trial, Michel was represented by Kenner, a well-known Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who has previously repped hip-hop luminaries like Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight and, most recently, Tory Lanez. But earlier this summer, Michel asked for permission to replace Kenner with a new team of lawyers; in August, Kenner and his firm were swapped out for lawyers from the national firm ArentFox Schiff.
Now, it’s clear why. In Monday’s filing, Michel’s new lawyers accused Kenner of wide-ranging failures — including many that have nothing to do with AI tools or secret motives. They claim he “outsourced trial preparations” to other lawyers and “failed to familiarize himself with the charged statutes or required elements.” They also say he “overlooked nearly every colorable defense” and “failed to object to damaging and inadmissible testimony, betraying a failure to understand the rules of evidence.”
But the most unusual allegations concerned an alleged scheme to promote EyeLevel.AI, a computer program designed to help attorneys win cases by digesting trial transcripts and other data. Days after the trial concluded, the company put out a press release highlighting its use in the Michel trial, calling it the “first use of generative AI in a federal trial” and quoting Kenner.
“This is an absolute game changer for complex litigation,” Kenner said in the press release. “The system turned hours or days of legal work into seconds. This is a look into the future of how cases will be conducted.”
But according to Michel’s new lawyers, Kenner’s use of the program was harmful, not helpful, to his client’s case. They say it may have led to some smaller mistakes, like Kenner misattributing a Puff Daddy song to the Fugees, but also to massive legal errors, like conflating separate allegations against Michel — an error that Michel’s new lawyers say caused Kenner to make “frivolous” arguments before the jury.
“At bottom, the AI program failed Kenner, and Kenner failed Michel,” Michel’s attorneys at ArentFox Schiff wrote. “The closing argument was deficient, unhelpful, and a missed opportunity that prejudiced the defense.”
According to Michel’s new lawyers, the mistake of using the AI tools was compounded by Kenner’s alleged motive: an undisclosed ownership stake in the startup that sells it. By using a criminal trial as a means to promote a product, Monday’s filing says Kenner created “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”
“Kenner and [his partner]’s decision to elevate their financial interest in the AI program over Michel’s interest in a competent and vigorous defense adversely affected Kenner’s trial performance, as the closing argument was frivolous, missed nearly every colorable argument, and damaged the defense,” they wrote.
