Many Shkreli jurors excused

Several potential jurors at the federal securities fraud trial of Martin “Pharma Bro” Shkreli were excused on Monday after telling the judge they couldn’t be impartial toward the flamboyant former pharmaceutical CEO because of his notoriety for raising the cost of a lifesaving drug 5,000 percent.

At jury selection in a Brooklyn, N.Y., courtroom, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto questioned the potential jurors at sidebars out of earshot from Shkreli. One called him “the face of corporate greed,” another labeled him “the most hated man in America” and a third gestured as if wringing his neck.

Yet another was sent home after confiding that when she saw Shkreli sitting at the defense table, “I said in my head, ‘That’s a snake.’ ”

Opening statements could come as soon as Tuesday.

Since his high-profile arrest in late 2015 when he was led into court in a gray hoodie, the 34-yearold Shkreli has been free on bail and free to speak his mind on social media in ways that could complicate his defense. He went on Twitter to label members of Congress “imbeciles” for demanding to know why his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis and HIV, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

He took to YouTube for a series of lessons on chemistry and stock market analysis. His Twitter posts mocking a freelance journalist turned so creepy — one showed a fake photo of him canoodling with her — that his account was shut down. And on Facebook, he mused about the possibility of being “unjustly imprisoned.”

Shkreli “travels to the beat of a very unique drummer,” exasperatedsounding defense attorney Benjamin Brafman said at a pretrial hearing this month.

Columbia law Professor John Coffee compared the situation to President Donald Trump’s unruly tweeting habits. “A lawyer can caution him,” he said. “But just like Trump, he doesn’t have to listen.”