Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli Arrested for Securities Fraud

Dec 18, 2015- Representatives for pharmaceutical boss Martin Shkreli, who sparked outrage after hiking up the price of a medicine used by Aids patients, say he strongly denies fraud charges. And now he has been indicted on criminal charges that he bilked a company out of millions of dollars.

He was charged in a seven-count indictment unconnected to the drug price rises imposed by his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals. Retrophin was founded in 2012 and Shkreli was its CEO until the company fired him in September 2014. The indictment was brought by prosecutors in Brooklyn.

“His plots were matched only by efforts to hide the fraud, which led him to operate his companies, including a publicly traded company, as a Ponzi scheme, where he used the assets of the new entity to pay off debts from the old entity”.

A second defendant, Evan Greebel, an attorney, was charged with conspiracy.

Pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on December 17 for alleged fraud during his time as a hedge fund manager.

At a news conference held by federal prosecutors and officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, officials painted Shkreli’s business dealings as “a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit and greed”. Capers also said that the investigation was continuing and more arrests were probable.

Amid the uproar, Shkreli said Turing would cut the price of Daraprim.

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Robert Capers told reporters, “We’re not aware of where he got the funds that he raised for the Wu-Tang Clan album”. If convicted, he could face a maximum of 20 years of jail time. He was calm throughout the hearing, smiling and occasionally winking at family members in the courtroom.

He was later bailed on payment of a $5m (£3.3m) bond package and allowed home.

Bloomberg said Shkreli’s lawyer and a spokesman for Retrophin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

However, the price of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals shares surged from around US$2 to above US$40 after the struggling cancer drug developer named Shkreli chairman and CEO in November.

Shkreli stayed in the news by being incredibly smug and shitty about the whole thing, refusing to lower the price while claiming that all the attention nets him, “50-100 date solicitations a day” and bragging about how much money he has like a complete asshole. Shares of KaloBios plunged by close to 50 percent on the back of the reports and trading had to be halted in the shares.

Shkreli caught the harsh criticism in the health community after he announced the rights acquisition of Daraprim, an off-patent drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can lead to eye problems and seizures.