Trial judge: Shut up, Bro!
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered loudmouth former drug-company exec Martin Shkreli to shut his trap.
Judge Kiyo Matsumoto told the “Pharma Bro” to stop talking about his case in and around the Brooklyn courthouse, after prosecutors complained of a “circus-like atmosphere” that could taint jurors.
Matsumoto said she was “shocked” after Shkreli, 34, last week went on a 10-minute rant to reporters, slamming prosecutors as a “junior varsity” team and ripping into one of the victims of his alleged Ponzi scheme.
“Any juror could have heard that. What is happening is that because of your client’s conduct, those jurors will be exposed,” Matsumoto told defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman.
“All your client has to do is stop talking in the courthouse and around the courthouse . . . This is only going to hurt Mr. Shkreli in the end.”
But the defendant’s big mouth still came back to bite him during Wednesday’s testimony, with several witnesses saying Shkreli talked a big game while secretly scamming them out of millions.
One witness, who had invested in Shkreli’s now-insolvent hedge fund, said the Brooklyn native had talked him into starting the drug company Retrophin with the promise that part of the business would be owned by a family whose child had died of a rare disease.
Asked by prosecutors if the Joshua Frase Foundation received any shares, the billionaire investor, Darren Blanton, said, “No.”
Prosecutors allege that Shkreli, 34, was instead siphoning money from Retrophin to cover debts owed to Blanton and others after his hedge fund, MSMB Capital, went bust.
Earlier, Merrill Lynch salesman Steve Stich claimed that Shkreli “threatened” him after MSMB was unable to cover a short trade in 2011, which left the firm with a $7 million loss.
“[Shkreli said] he knew people, that he would find ways to pay us back, [and it would] not be wise to go to legal proceedings or make anybody aware of it,” Stich testified.