Fugees Rapper Pras Michel Claims Lawyer Botched His Trial with ‘Experimental Artificial Intelligence’

Pras Michel, the Fugees member who was found guilty in April of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government, is now claiming that his trial lawyer was “unqualified, unprepared and ineffectual throughout the trial” — and that he used an “experimental artificial intelligence program” to draft a closing argument.

Michel, 51, and his legal team filed a motion for a new trial on Monday, citing several reasons, among them, his defense counsel David Kenner allegedly having been “ineffective” and having “severely prejudiced the defense.”

“Kenner used an experimental AI program to write his closing argument, which made frivolous arguments, conflated the schemes and failed to highlight key weaknesses in the Government’s case,” the document, which was obtained by PEOPLE, reads.

The court motion cites a press release about the company EyeLevel.AI, which notes that Kenner’s use of artificial intelligence in the case was “the first use of generative AI in a federal trial.” The release itself touted “cutting-edge technology” that allows lawyers to “obtain complex answers about the facts of their case in a fraction of the time compared to traditional legal search methods or advanced legal analytics.”

Kenner, who has previously represented Snoop Dogg, called the technology a “game changer for complex litigation” in the aforementioned release.

He did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment Friday.

According to Michel’s legal team, Kenner’s use of AI “may also explain” why the lawyer misattributed lyrics from Diddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” to the Fugees. The motion also notes that he misattributed Michel’s solo track “Ghetto Supastar (That is What You Are)” as a Fugees song, too.

The motion also alleges that Kenner may have had “an undisclosed financial interest in the program,” which EyeLevel.AI COO Neil Katz denied to the Associated Press, with the company adding that the program wasn’t “experimental,” and only used facts from the case and court transcripts.

“We think AI technology is going to completely revolutionize the legal field by making it faster and cheaper to get complex answers to legal questions and research,” Katz said.

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Elsewhere in the motion, Michel’s attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, argued for a new trial by writing that “the jury was told that two federal judges had already ruled that Michel conspired to commit the charged crimes, influencing the jury and tainting the verdict.”

The rapper was found guilty on 10 counts over attempts to help a Malaysian businessman, Jho Low, and the Chinese government gain access to the highest levels of the U.S. government, CNN previously reported.

The guilty verdict followed claims by prosecutors that Low gave Michel $100 million as an “unregistered backchannel campaign” to influence Trump administration officials to drop an investigation into Low, an international fugitive accused of embezzling $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, according to the Washington Post. The prosecutors also reportedly claimed that the money came with the aim of arranging the transportation of a political dissident back to China, as previously reported.

CNN reported that Michel testified that in 2012, Low paid him $20 million to set up a photograph with Barack Obama, with prosecutors alleging that the rapper “funneled over $800,000” of Low’s money to the former president’s campaign through straw donors.

The New York Times noted after the trial that Michel was found guilty of witness tampering, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Kenner told reporters after the verdict, per NBC News, that he was “confident” about seeking a mistrial at the time.

“Today’s verdict demonstrates that anyone who engages in unlawful foreign-sponsored efforts to influence American officials, our elections or the criminal justice system will be brought to justice,” Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department, told The New York Times.

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