Martin Shkreli ordered to pay out $7 million for criminal activities
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Pharma bro Martin Shkreli has been ordered to pay out over seven million dollars in reparations after he was found guilty of fraudulent activity.
The disgraced executive of drug company Retrophin was found guilty of manipulating the stock price of his company.
He was also found to have lied to investors about the success of two hedge funds that he manages.
The 34-year-old is awaiting one more conviction, but so far he has been ordered to pay out $7.36 million.
Shkreli has claimed that he is cash poor, which means he will have to hand over “substitute assets” to the government.
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Included in the assets is the Wu Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
Only one version of the album exists, and Shkreli purchased it for two million dollars in 2015, before his misconduct came to light.
However, it is unclear if the album, which came in a silver-and-nickel-plated box with 174-page liner notes bound by hand in leather, is still in Shkreli’s possession as he listed it for sale on eBay last year.
A painting by Pablo Picasso, an unreleased Lil Wayne album, five million dollars held in an E-Trade brokerage account and his shares in Vyera Pharmaceuticals will also have to be handed over.
Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, issued the order Monday.
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Shkreli’s defence team tried to argue that he should not have to forfeit any money to the government, or only a small fraction.
Judge Matsumoto brushed aside the arguments.
However, the execution of the order is “pending the resolution of Shkreli’s planned appeal of his conviction”.
Shkreli earnt his title of “Pharma Bro” after he hiked the price of an AIDS drug by 5500 percent.
When he was the chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, he purchased the rights to the 62-year-old drug Daraprim.
Daraprim is used to treat toxoplasmosis – an opportunistic parasitic infection which can cause life-threatening problems for people with AIDS.
Toxoplasmosis can also affect babies and those with certain types of cancer.
It was just one dollar a tablet, but Shkreli hiked the price to $750 per pill.
