Lawyer representing hip hop star accused of using AI in major case he lost

A Fugees rapper convicted in a multimillion-dollar political scheme this spring is seeking a retrial after his defense lawyer apparently relied on AI to draft his closing arguments — botching “the single most important portion” of the trial.

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel filed a blistering motion on Monday accusing his former attorney David Kenner of bungling his closing arguments in the high-profile trial this past April.

Kenner “used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes” before publicly bragging that the AI program “turned hours or days of legal work into seconds,” Michel’s new defense team from ArentFox Schiff said.

The rapper’s legal team continued: “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.”

Kenner, who has previously represented hip-hop artists including Snoop Dogg and Suge Knight, apparently had an undisclosed financial interest in a company called CaseFile Connect, which acted as a “technology partner” to the AI program, EyeLevel.AI.

The brief asserts that Kenner and his co-counsel Alon Israely used Michel’s trial as an opportunity to promote CaseFile Connect, which Kenner reportedly revealed to the courtroom at the end of the trial, according to a declaration accompanying the brief written by former federal prosecutor and ArentFox partner Peter Zeidenberg.

Zeidenberg pointed to a press release from EyeLevel that included a photo of Michel and boasted that the company’s technology “made history” by becoming the first use of AI in a federal trial.

In the announcement, Kenner is quoted as saying the AI program “turned hours or days of legal work into seconds,” and called his use of the program “a look into the future of how cases will be conducted.”

The news release fails to mention that Michel was convicted on all 10 felony charges he faced, including trying to persuade the Trump administration to drop an investigation into Malaysian businessman Jho Low.

Federal prosecutors claimed that Michel received approximately $100 million from Low, dubbed the “Asian Great Gatsby,” and illegally contributed Low’s money to American political campaigns, including Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

In addition to the alleged AI closing argument, the brief accuses Kenner of not preparing enough for the complex white-collar case — and outsourcing trial preparation from inexperienced contract attorneys at a company founded by his co-counsel, who just happens an old friend of his.

Michel’s new attorneys now say that because of Kenner’s poor representation, he “never had a chance.”

With Post wires.