Earlier (2016) by Michelle Malkin: Leo DiCaprio’s Dirty Dollars...And Hillary’s
From the Washington Post:
Leonardo DiCaprio testifies in trial of Fugees rapper Pras Michél
“The Wolf of Wall Street” star took the witness stand in federal court in Washington as Michél is accused in a criminal case arising from one of the world’s biggest financial scandals
By Paul Duggan
Updated April 3, 2023 at 6:43 p.m.As U.S. authorities tell it, the theft of $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund by a coterie of kleptocrats in Kuala Lumpur allowed the main embezzler, a wild-partying, celebrity-obsessed financier named Low Taek Jho, to buy his way into the Hollywood movie business. With part of his ill-gotten fortune, Low quietly helped create a production company that put up $100 million in 2012 to make “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the FBI said. …
“Your honor, the government would like to call Leonardo DiCaprio, please.” …
“At the risk of asking a stupid question,” she began, “what do you do for a living?”
“I am an actor,” he said in a soft, measured voice, before testifying for over an hour about his long-ago business dealings and nightlife adventures with Low, now a fugitive from justice. He mentioned yachts and private jets and spoke of party excursions to Australia and South America, but mostly he discussed “The Wolf of Wall Street” and how it came to be financed by the rotund, flamboyant, Ivy League-educated money man, for whom a five-figure bar tab was just another evening on the town.
“I understood him to be a huge businessman with many different connections in Abu Dhabi and Malaysia,” DiCaprio said of Low, adding, “He would have a multitude of lavish parties, many people from all over the world: actors, celebrities, musicians.”
Until the 48-year-old Tinseltown icon—who is not accused of any wrongdoing—made his guest appearance Monday in U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s courtroom, the biggest star in criminal case No. 1:19-cr-00148 had been the defendant, Grammy Award-winning rap artist Prakazrel “Pras” Michél, a founding member of the short-lived but influential 1990s hip-hop trio the Fugees.
Unlike DiCaprio’s involvement with Low, Michél’s association with the missing financier was felonious, according to authorities. …
After acquiring the film rights to the 2007 memoir “The Wolf of Wall Street,” by confessed stock swindler Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio became frustrated when studios declined to greenlight the kind of movie he and director Martin Scorsese wanted to make, according to trade publications. Then, in 2010, he met Low at a party in Las Vegas, he told the jury.
He said he heard that Low, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and son of a rich Malaysian father, “was a sort of prodigy in the business world and was incredibly successful.” Eventually they struck a deal in which a company run by two of Low’s friends, but silently funded by Low, would finance “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The firm, Red Granite Productions (now Red Granite Pictures), agreed to a $100 million budget.
DiCaprio said “my lawyer and my team” vetted Low. He said his people reported that “the background check was fine and he was a legitimate business person.” The two became not only financial associates but social pals, traveling on Low’s jet with bevies of other boldfaced names to parties all over the world. He told the jury that they once flew to Australia to celebrate New Year’s Eve — then immediately flew to Las Vegas, hoping to greet the same new year a second time. …
The reason The Wolf of Wall Street goes on for three hours is because every time the studios tried to rein in Scorsese’s extravagant spending, DiCaprio would go charm Jho Low into ponying up even more money.
He said he distanced himself from Low in 2015 after news stories began to appear about the 1MDB scandal and Low’s alleged role in it. Low had helped establish the fund in the late 2000s, when he was a close associate of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was eventually ousted from office and sentenced to prison in connection with the embezzlement. …
Red Granite, the production company Low quietly funded, turned over $60 million to U.S. authorities to resolve a government lawsuit. And DiCaprio surrendered gifts he’d received from Low: $12 million in artworks by Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a $750,000 Diane Arbus photograph, and Marlon Brando’s 1955 best-actor Oscar for “On the Waterfront.”
But of course Scorsese and DiCaprio were wholly naive about the legitimacy of Jho Low’s ridiculous wealth. I mean, what would Scorsese and DiCaprio know about the darker side of human motivations?
