If I’d been praying, I’d be tempted to believe in a god. No, wait, I wouldn’t – douchebros have a tendency to make their own misfortune, and our own terrible Martin Shkreli, last seen hiking the prices of a crucial drug for immunocompromised patiented by 5,000% and then using a few millions of the profits to buy a rare Wu Tang Clan album (which he could then prevent everyone else from enjoying), has managed to get himself arrested for securities fraud.
A boyish drug company entrepreneur, who rocketed to infamy by jacking up the price of a life-saving pill from $13.50 to $750, was arrested by federal agents at his Manhattan home early Thursday morning on securities fraud related to a firm he founded.
Martin Shkreli, 32, ignited a firestorm over drug prices in September and became a symbol of defiant greed. The federal case against him has nothing to do with pharmaceutical costs, however. Prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he’d been chief executive officer, and sued by its board.
In the case that closely tracks that suit, federal prosecutors accused Shkreli of engaging in a complicated shell game after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions. He is alleged to have made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements. A New York lawyer, Evan Greebel, was also arrested early Thursday. He’s accused of conspiring with Shkreli in part of the scheme.
Ah, such sweet schadenfreude in the morning! Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. Continue reading “Oh, Look! An Early Christmas Present!”