Martin Shkreli, the entrepreneur who gained infamy by raising the price of a life-saving pill from $13.50 to $750, has been arrested. Shkreli did further damage to his public image with other acts and boasts. He spent millions on the only copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album that music fans are desperate to hear and then told Bloomberg Businessweek that he had no immediate plans to listen to it. He takes often to Twitter and message boards, bragging about his business strategies, musical tastes and politics; he live-streams from his office for long stretches.
‘Shkreli initially responded to the criticism by saying he would lower the Daraprim price and then changed his mind again. When Hillary Clinton tried one more time last month to get him to cut the cost, he dismissed her with the tweet “lol.” At a Forbes summit in New York this month, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, he said if he could have done it over, “I probably would have raised the price higher,” adding, “my investors expect me to maximize profits.”‘ What an Ahole! I wonder if the drug price hike story promted people to pay closer attention to what else he was up to. That would be delicious schadenfreude. This is from 2011. I seriously doubt the feds would jerry rig an Indictment like this in less than a year.
Bloomberg exclusively revealed he was being detained on securities fraud related to a firm he founded.
Bloomberg’s photographer John Taggart captured the moment Shkreli left federal court in New York on Thursday morning. (pictured above)
“The $65 million Retrophin wants from me would not dent me. I feel great. I’m licking my chops over the suits I’m going to file against them”
Retrophin replaced Shkreli as CEO “because of serious concerns about his conduct,” the company said in a statement. The company, which hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing, has “fully cooperated with the government investigations into Mr. Shkreli.” “Every transaction I’ve ever made at Retrophin was done with outside counsel’s blessing,” he said on the investment blog in February”
When New New Money makes New Money and Old Money look bad eventually something gets done to solve the image problem. Like removing this sign after it went up over Occupy Wall Street protests:
