Closing arguments are set for today in fraud trial of ‘Pharma Bro’ Shkreli
NEW YORK — “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has kept up his trademark trolling on social media during his securities fraud trial — calling the case “bogus” — but the jury won’t hear him defend himself in court.
The government’s last witness testified Tuesday, a day after a lawyer for the former biotech CEO told the court that his client had chosen not to take the stand. Closing arguments are set for Thursday, with deliberations expected to begin as early as Friday.
Shkreli, 34, is best known for raising the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent and targeting his critics with online rants so nasty that they got him kicked off Twitter for harassment. He was arrested in 2015 on unrelated federal charges accusing him of lying to investors in a pair of failed hedge funds.
Although not part of the case, the price-gouging scandal has hung over the trial and burdened Shkreli with a likability deficit that made it even more of a long shot that he would testify. But that hasn’t stopped him from using the internet to vent after spending long days sitting at the defense table. Even prosecutors aren’t off-limits: Earlier this month, he taunted them as “the cowardly government.”
Although they won’t hear from him in court and are under orders to avoid anything about him in the cyber realm, jurors in recent days have gotten a taste of Shkreli’s disdain for investors and mercurial demeanor.
In testimony, a former business partner described how Shkreli sent his wife a threatening letter.
“Your husband has stolen $1.6 million from me,” it read. “I hope to see you and your four children homeless. I will do whatever I can to assure this.”