Let me Bro, feds Pharma fiend Shkreli appeals ’17 conviction
Bro wants a break.
A federal appeals court is considering whether to toss the securities fraud conviction of former drug company honcho Martin Shkreli — the smirky entrepreneur known as Pharma Bro.
Defense lawyer Mark Baker urged the panel of judges in Manhattan federal appeals court to overturn Shkreli’s 2017 guilty verdict, claiming it was flawed due to the “misleading” instructions given the jury.
He also pointed out that the same jury acquitted Shkreli on related charge.
“The split verdict speaks volumes,” Baker argued.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alixandra Smith asserted that the jury instructions were proper.
The court is expected to issue a written ruling, but no firm date was given.
Shkreli was slapped with a sentence of seven years in prison last year for his conviction on charges he looted the drug company he founded, Retrophin, of $11 million in stock and cash to pay back investors in two failed hedge funds.
The defense had wire fraud argued there was no harm done — because in the end, everybody got rich off the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.
The notoriously smug Brooklyn-born Shkreli first shot into national headlines in 2015 for raising the prices of medicine he controlled by as much as 5,000%, including a lifesaving drug for AIDS patients — and for trolling his critics on social media.
Last month, Shkreli, 36, filed suit against three ex-colleagues over his ouster from Retrophin, alleging they were “driven by their egos, jealousy and greed.”
In the suit, he alleged execs Stephen Aselage, Margaret Valeur-Jensen and Gary Lyons conspired to oust him in 2014, and cheat him out of over $30 million.