Martin Shkreli and his attorney Benjamin Brafman. Photo courtesy of Fox News.
Summary: The “Pharma Bro” has been sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud.
Martin Shkreli was convicted of defrauding investors, and on Friday, a judge handed the man, known to this country as “Pharma Bro,” a sentence of seven years in prison.
According to CNBC, Shkreli gave a sob-filled plea for leniency, which somewhat worked because he could have been given fifteen years instead of seven. During his plea in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, he expressed remorse, stating, “The one person to blame for me being here today is me. Not the government. There is no conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli with my disgraceful and shameful actions. This is my fault. I am no victim here.”
Shkreli ran a hedge fund and a drug company, and authorities said that he had cheated his investors. According to NPR, “Shkreli was found guilty on two counts of securities fraud for duping hedge fund investors in MSMB Capital Management and MSMB Healthcare about the financial performance of the two companies that he operated. And he was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud for manipulating stock shares of Retrophin, a pharmaceutical company he created.”
Shkreli was represented by attorney Benjamin Brafman, and the judge in the case was Kiyo Matsumoto. Brafman had argued that Shkreli should receive a maximum sentence of 18 months.
“He has the potential to do good,” Brafman said. “He shouldn’t be sentenced simply for being Martin Shkreli.”
As a pharmaceutical CEO, Shkreli gained infamy for raising the drug price of Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent in 2015. He earned further ire by picking fights with people on Twitter and for buying the sole copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album just to keep it away from the public.
During his fraud trial, Matsumoto heard testimony from Shkreli’s friends and family, asking for leniency, and Shkreli also told the judge that he was not motivated by money but by wanting to “grow my stature and my reputation.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis told the judge that the “public needs to be protected from Mr. Shkreli.” She added that the Pharma Bro was “dangerous.”
When considering Shkreli’s sentence, Judge Matsumoto weighed the Pharma Bro’s abusive childhood, problems with anxiety, and talent for scientific research against his negatives such as his foul-mouthed boasts, sophisticated financial deceptions, and threats to enemies when deciding on how many years to sentence him to prison.
After handing Shkreli his sentence, the judge urged him to continue teaching inmates math and finance, as he had been doing recently, and she told him, “I do wish you well.”
Shkreli said that he plans to appeal the decision. He will get six months of credit for time he has already spent in jail, and upon his release, he will serve three years of probation and pay a fine of $75,000. He has already been ordered to forfeit $7.4 million to the government.
Additionally, Shkreli may no longer hold a majority stake in a company or any type of executive position.
“The government didn’t get what they wanted. We didn’t get what we wanted, either,” Brafman told CNN. “This is a good judge who I think spent a great deal of time trying to examine the facts and all of the letters that were written on behalf of Mr. Shkreli and she made her decision and we all have to live with it.”
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