Martin Shkreli, so-called ‘Pharma Bro’ released from prison
FILE – Former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli attends the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 4, 2016. A federal judge on Friday, Jan. 14, 2022 ordered Shkreli to return $64.6 million in profits he and his company reaped from inflating the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim and barred him from participating in the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of his life. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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(NEXSTAR) — The former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, who courted international headlines after his company skyrocketed prices on a lifesaving drug in 2015, has been released from a prison stay tied to an unrelated securities fraud case.
Washington Post reports Shkreli’s lawyer, Ben Braufman said in a statement: “I am pleased to report that Martin Shkreli has been released from Allenwood prison and transferred to a BOP halfway house after completing all programs that allowed for his prison sentence to be shortened.”
Braufman said Shkreli will now report to a halfway house.
The 39 year-old Brooklyn native was convicted in 2017, after a federal court found him guilty of lying to investors when they lost money and using funds from other investors’ accounts to pay them.
“Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at that time.
Prior to this, Shkreli rose to infamy when Turing Pharmaceuticals (later known as Vyera), increased the price of Daraprim – a treatment for a rare and potentially fatal parasitic disease affecting cancer and AIDS patients, in addition to pregnant women – from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill.
The move was widely condemned, though then-CEO Shkreli defended it, saying it was the market at work. Shrkeli’s unapologetic comments, in addition to his $2 million-dollar purchase of a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, earned him the moniker “Pharma Bro.” He also later offered Kanye West $10 million for sole ownership of West’s 2016 album “The Life of Pablo.”
Earlier this year, Shkreli was ordered to pay back $64.6 million he and Vyera pocketed from the Daraprim price hike. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Denis Cote also barred Shkreli from holding positions in the pharmaceutical industry for life.
