New York Daily News

Bro owes us first, feds told by N.Y.

- Andrew Keshner

NEW YORK STATE has a message for the feds about cashing in on Martin Shkreli’s high-priced hip-hop memorabili­a: We were there first.

The state filed court papers Friday saying it gets first dibs at money from the “substitute assets” to pay off the rest of the $480,000 still owed on Shkreli’s New York tax bill.

Those assets include Shkreli’s single-edition copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” and a still-unreleased copy of “Tha Carter V” by Lil Wayne, plus a Picasso painting and a $5 million brokerage account.

Shkreli, 35, is serving a sevenyear sentence on his August conviction for defrauding investors in hedge funds he managed. He’s appealing his case.

The former drug company chief, known derisively as Pharma Bro, already has a $7.36 million federal forfeiture order on his head, and Brooklyn federal prosecutor­s see the music and art as possible ways to pay it off.

He was assigned to prison last week at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

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