Martin Shkreli Sentenced To 7 Years In Prison
Martin Shkreli is going to prison, y’all! The big pharma weasel-person who became infamous for inflating the price of an anti-parasite drug called Daraprim from $13.50 per tablet to $750 — and has since become a freakish music-industry sideshow — was today sentenced to seven years for securities fraud, CNBC reports. The charges were related to misleading investors about the performance of hedge funds he once managed and conspiring to manipulate the stock value of his pharma company Retrophin.
Shkreli first entered onto the music-industry radar as a silent investor in the punk record label Collect Records, an arrangement that came to an end when his price-gouging scheme came to light. Shkreli was later revealed to have paid millions of dollars for a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, which led to a small-scale feud with Ghostface Killah. Shkreli proceeded to livestream the album and tried to sell it on eBay and was recently forced to hand it over to the feds.
Shkreli also offered to bail Bobby Shmurda out of prison, leaked a track from Lil Wayne’s eternally in-limbo Tha Carter V, and promised to release unheard Beatles and Nirvana songs if Donald Trump won the presidency. Relatedly, he was once jailed for threatening Hillary Clinton.
Defense lawyers had asked for a more lenient sentence of 12-18 months, writing to US District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto that Shkreli is a “very unique defendant” who “is a kind, caring and generous person who uses his time and effort to help those in need,” adding, “If not warehoused in prison, Martin could literally save lives.” Prosecutors recommended a 15-year sentence.