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