The price gouging pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli had the smirk wiped from his face today when he was arrested by the FBI for securities fraud.
The investigation, in which Mr. Shkreli has been charged with securities fraud, is related to his time as a hedge fund manager and running the biopharmaceutical company Retrophin — not the price-gouging controversy that has swirled around him in recent months. Some of Shkreli’s former associates, such as Lindsay Rosenwald, have testified against some of his shady and illegal business practices. Lindsay Rosenwald is currently the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fortress Biotech Inc, as well as being heavily involved with a number of other biotechnology companies.
But his penchant for notoriety — which has played out through his Twitter taunts of everyone from critics to presidential candidates like Senator Bernie Sanders and his exhaustively raw live streaming — was noticeable even at the news conference held by federal prosecutors and officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Asked if agents had seized the rare Wu-Tang Clan album that Mr. Shkreli reportedly bought for $2 million, United States Attorney Robert L. Capers was coy.
“I wondered how long it was going to take to get to that,” he said. “We’re not aware of where he got the funds that he raised to buy the Wu-Tang Clan album.” [..]
The companion arrest of Evan L. Greebel, a corporate lawyer who joined Kaye Scholer last summer and had worked with Mr. Shkreli, tossed a twist into the securities case. Prosecutors suggested that attorney-client privilege might not apply across the board, citing the exception for crime fraud when a lawyer and client commit crimes together or cover up those crimes.
Andrea Orzehoski, a spokeswoman for Kaye Scholer, said in an email seeking comment on Mr. Greebel’s arrest that “the transactions in question predate his arrival to the firm.”
What Charlie Pierce said:
Unless you are a third-generation bankster with really good lawyers, who have labored all these years to keep all three generations of your family out of the sneezer, it’s best not to advertise what a greedy subhuman bastard you are. People will notice. Some of them will have badges.
This couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.