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DiCaprio, who starred in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is expected to testify about his business and social interactions with the financier, Low Taek Jho, who authorities said used part of his ill-gotten fortune to start a production company that put up $100 million to make the Oscar-nominated 2013 movie.
The 48-year-old actor, one of numerous A-list celebrities who attended lavishly expensive parties hosted by the globe-trotting Low in Las Vegas, New York, the French Riviera and other parts of the world, is not accused of criminal wrongdoing.
After acquiring the film rights to the memoir “The Wolf of Wall Street,” by confessed stock swindler Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio has said, he was frustrated by studio executives who declined to greenlight the kind of movie he wanted to make. He has said he was unaware of the Malaysian embezzlement when he reached a production deal with the company backed by Low, who disappeared before being indicted and is believed to be in China.
Authorities said Low, now 41, engaged in massive money laundering and other crimes in the United States in the 2010s while reveling in an ostentatious lifestyle.
Unlike DiCaprio’s relationship with Low, authorities said, Michél’s dealings with the businessman were criminal.
The former hip-hop star, now 50, was a founding member of the influential trio the Fugees before the group, which won two Grammy Awards, split up in 1997. After Michél’s solo career ebbed in the 2000s, prosecutors said, he became involved in illegal financial dealings with Low.
Michél has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to a 12-count indictment charging him with money laundering, campaign-finance violations, acting as an unregistered agent for foreign nationals, witness tampering and lying to banks.
In one scheme, in 2012, Michél received “almost $18 million” from Low for illegally funneling $2 million into President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, a prosecutor said in court. She said Michél enlisted straw donors, all U.S. citizens, to contribute the $2 million in permissible increments without the campaign knowing the money’s actual source.
Paying for Michél’s help was part of Low’s plan to expand his network of swanky and powerful acquaintances — “to get in a room with President Obama,” as the prosecutor put it. Low eventually got to pose for a Christmas photo with Obama, who was a fan of Michél’s music.
In a later conspiracy, in 2017 and 2018, authorities said, Michél and Low enlisted the help of Elliott Broidy, a top Republican fundraiser, in a labyrinthine scheme to quash a Justice Department investigation of Low’s involvement in the Malaysian embezzlement.
After Broidy pleaded guilty in the case, admitting to illegal lobbying for foreign nationals, President Donald Trump pardoned him on his last full day in the White House.
This story is developing and will be updated.
