‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, 39, has been released from his prison sentence early on Wednesday – serving five years of a seven-year stretch behind bars.
His attorney Ben Brafman, said in a statement to the New York Post: ‘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.’
He official release date is scheduled for October 2023.
Shkreli, who once led Vyera Pharmaceuticals, was sentenced to prison in 2018 for defrauding investors by lying to them about the performance of two hedge funds he ran, withdrawing more money from those funds than he was entitled to get, and defrauding investors in a drug company, Retrophin, by hiding his ownership of some of its stock.
He took $11million of stock from his firm and shelled it out to investors in two failed hedge funds he ran.
In 2015, he became infamous for suddenly raising the price of the drug Daraprim in 2015 by 5,000 percent – from $13.50 a pill to $750. The drug treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that threatens people with weakened immune systems.
Shkreli became the ‘most hated man in America’ after the move.
He was seen wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants upon his early release from prison and a man named Edmund Sullivan claimed to have picked him up and posted photos of the two together in the car.
Shkreli also posted a photo to his Facebook page, showing himself in the backseat of the car, writing: ‘Getting out of real prison is easier than getting out of Twitter prison.’
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, 39, has been released from his prison sentence early on Wednesday
The pair seemed to stop at a restaurant for a bite to eat on the way to the halfway house
He also appeared to be filming his release as a camera man can be seen sitting next to him
The fraudster had previously been denied early release during the pandemic, despite saying to he wanted to develop a cure for COVID-19.
An NYC judge denied his bid to be released so he could start a team to solve the pandemic, which at that point, had infected more than 1.5million Americans and killed almost 90,000.
‘The court does not find that releasing Mr. Shkreli will protect the public, even though Mr. Shkreli seeks to leverage his experience with pharmaceuticals to help develop a cure for Covid-19 that he would purportedly provide at no cost,’ an order read, according to bloomberg,
TMZ reports that court documents also said Shkreli’s intentions to discover a cure that has ‘so far eluded the best medical and scientific minds in the world working around the clock’ is exactly the type of ‘delusional self-aggrandizing behavior’ he exhibited before his 2018 conviction .
At the time, Shkreli claimed that his motivations weren’t driven by greed and that being a ‘successful two-time biopharma entrepreneur’ made him uniquely qualified to help.
However, now, he has been barred from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again as a result of his fraud case. In addition, he still has to pay nearly $65million to seven states – New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia – that sued him for antitrust violations.
The states alleged in their case that his company hiked the price of Daraprim and illegally created ‘a web of anticompetitive restrictions’ to prevent other companies from creating cheaper generic versions. Among other things, they alleged, Vyera blocked access to a key ingredient for the medication and to data the companies would want to evaluate the drug´s market potential.
In a 130-page decision, Cote faulted Shkreli for creating two companies that were designed to monopolize drugs so he could profit ‘on the backs’ of patients, doctors and distributors.
‘Shkreli was no side player in, or a ‘remote, unrelated’ beneficiary of Vyera’s scheme,’ Cote wrote in a 135-page opinion.
‘He was the mastermind of its illegal conduct and the person principally responsible for it throughout the years.’
She said the Daraprim scheme was ‘particularly heartless and coercive,’ and a lifetime industry ban was needed because of the ‘real danger’ that Shkreli could become a repeat offender.
‘Shkreli’s anticompetitive conduct at the expense of the public health was flagrant and reckless,’ the judge wrote. He is unrepentant. Barring him from the opportunity to repeat that conduct is nothing if not in the interest of justice.
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli has been released from his prison sentence early – serving five years of a seven-year stretch behind bars
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was among the states suing Skreli, praised the ruling.
‘Envy, greed, lust, and hate, don’t just separate, but they obviously motivated Shkreli and his partner to illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans’ lives hung in the balance,’ said James.
‘But Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is a pharma bro no more.
‘A federal court has not only found that his conduct was illegal, but also banned this criminal from the pharmaceutical industry for life and required him to pay nearly $65million.
‘This is on top of the $40million we’ve already secured from Vyera.
‘The rich and powerful don’t get to play by their own set of rules, so I it seems that cash doesn’t rule everything around Mr. Shkreli.
‘New Yorkers can trust that my office will do everything possible to hold the powerful accountable, in addition to fighting to protect their health and their wallets.’
Shkreli has raised eyebrows with his behavior both in business and elsewhere throughout the years.
He bought a one-of-a-kind, unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album for $2million, called members of Congress ‘imbeciles,’ taunted prosecutors in the securities-fraud case against him, got kicked off of Twitter for harassing a female journalist and spent countless hours live streaming himself from his apartment.
While awaiting sentencing on his 2017 conviction, he offered his online followers a $5,000 bounty for a lock of former Democratic presidential nominee and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s hair.
His lawyers said it was a joke, but a judge revoked Shkreli’s bail and jailed him.
At his 2018 sentencing, Shkreli choked up, admitted making many mistakes and said he’d evolved.
‘There is no conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli,’ he said. ‘I took down Martin Shkreli.’
She even entered into a relationship with a former Bloomberg journalist Christie Smythe, 40, who left her husband just to end up being dumped for the former pharmaceutical bro.
Smythe, who broke the story of Shkreli’s arrest for securities fraud back in 2015, penned an 2021 op ed for the New York Postwhere she confessed she ‘has a thing for complicated guys’ but branded the idea she was manipulated by the convicted fraudster ‘ridiculous.’
‘In the end, if it was all a manipulation – getting me to take charge of my life and write the narrative for myself – I’m glad it worked,’ she said.
The journalist said the pair are still friends and she could wait to give him a ‘big hug’ once he was released.
This is a developing story