A Hawaii businesswoman who worked with an ex-rapper and a wealthy Republican donor to illegally lobby former President Donald Trump to drop the prosecution of a Malaysian fugitive and ship an exiled businessman back to China was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison Wednesday.
Nickie Mali Lum Davis, 47, pleaded guilty Aug. 31, 2020, to a single count of aiding and abetting in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for her work on behalf of Jho Low, a foreign fugitive responsible for one of the “largest embezzlement schemes in history,” involving the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, according to a sentencing memorandum from U.S. Department of Justice Principal Deputy Chief John D. Keller.
Lum Davis, who did not register as a lobbyist for foreign interests, tried to “use back channel influence” to persuade Trump to drop a federal investigation into Low and to “agree to the extrajudicial removal of a Chinese exile,” Guo Wengui, living in the U.S. Neither lobbying effort was successful.
In addition to 24 months in prison followed by three years on federal probation, U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi fined Lum Davis $250,000 and levied a $100 special assessment. Lum Davis and the government agreed upon a forfeiture amount of $3 million, to be paid in installments of $10,000 a month or 25% of her monthly income upon her release.
“This scheme was always about money,” said Keller, speaking in Kobayashi’s court Wednesday. “It wasn’t about patriotism or trying to return hostages, it was always about money.”
Lum Davis and her co-conspirators, former Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, and Elliott Broidy, were under contracts worth $100 million to secretly work at the direction of Low and the People’s Republic of China “disregarding the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Broidy was pardoned by Trump and Michel is preparing for trial. Lum Davis must report to Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, in California by noon on April 14.
No federal sentencing guidelines are attached to the offense and federal prosecutors asked that Lum Davis serve between 24 and 30 months in prison.
Her attorneys, David J. Minkin and William C. McCorriston, asked Kobayashi for probation. Lum Davis never had Low’s phone number, never spoke to government officials and just conveyed messages, Minkin said in court.
“We have a woman who should have thought twice about it but got caught up,” said Minkin, while asking Kobayashi for probation, noting that her grand jury testimony helped indict co-conspirators.
Kobayashi noted that Lum Davis tried to recant her guilty plea by blaming her former attorney in a “misguided attempt to rewrite history.”
“For a significant period of time … you agreed to act as an agent of a foreign national … this involved a lot of money,” said Kobayashi, speaking before she handed down her sentence. “You’ve shown no remorse or taken any responsibility …”
Minkin asked Kobayashi if the three years in prison could be served in home confinement under the “auspices of probation.” Kobayashi replied, “No.”
Lum Davis offered Kobayashi the chance to ask her any questions about the case and explained that “text messages can be taken out of context” and she was the “middle person” who got instructions from Michel and then put them to Broidy.
“I never had the government connections,” Lum Davis said.
More than a dozen supporters of Lum Davis sat in Kobayashi’s courtroom Wednesday wearing heart-shaped stickers that read “Support Nickie.”
Keller, Deputy Director of Election Crimes Sean F. Mulryne, trial attorney Nicole R. Lockhart of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson prosecuted the case for the government.
Keller declined comment following the sentencing, as did Lum Davis and her attorneys.
In May 2017 Lum Davis went to Bangkok for a meeting with Low and “her co-conspirators to discuss the 1MDB investigation and a back channel influence campaign to resolve the matter,” according to Keller’s memo.
TWO WEEKS later she went to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China, where “she and her co-conspirators met with Low again and Sun Lijun, the then-vice minister of public security for the PRC, to discuss the extrajudicial removal of Guo from the United States.”
Lum Davis and her co-conspirators agreed to lobby Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Homeland Security and later White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and “others with perceived access to, and influence with President Trump,” including lobbyist Rick Gates and casino mogul Steve Wynn.
During her return from the May 2017 China trip, Lum Davis previously testified that “Broidy texted her, ‘I’ll try to make this a big week with Jeff,’ referencing Sessions and raising ‘both Jho Low and Guo.’”
As part of their effort, Lum Davis, Broidy and their co-conspirators drafted a letter to be sent to Sessions recommending a meeting with Lijun about Guo; setting up a golf game and a meeting between Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to address the 1MDB investigation; drafting a letter for Trump in anticipation of the meeting with Razak and preparing Razak for the meeting in person; sending talking points to Tillerson in advance of an earlier meeting with Razak; joining Wynn for a direct call to Trump to advocate for sending Guo back to China; and meeting directly with Trump.
Lum Davis “was personally paid over $10 million for her role in the influence campaigns,” according to the federal court documents.
Lum Davis is not the first member of her family to run afoul of federal law while seeking sway with lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
In 1997 her parents, Nora T. Lum and Gene K.H. Lum, pleaded guilty to single counts of conspiracy to cause the filing of false reports with the Federal Election Commission after they admitted using employees and stockholders in their company, Dynamic Energy, as “straw” or “conduit” donors to conceal about $50,000 in illegal donations, according to a story in The Washington Post.
The donations either were illegal corporate contributions or exceeded the $2,000 annual limit on contributions and were made in 1994 and 1995 to the campaigns of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Oklahoma state House candidate W. Stuart Price, a son-in-law of then-Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, D-Maine.
Lum Davis’ sister, Trisha C. Lum, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of federal election laws for allowing her name to be used on a $10,000 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to hide that it was actually paid by her mother, Nora, according to the Post story.
