Sobbing Martin Shkreli Sentenced To 7 Years In Prison

NEW YORK, NY — Notorious "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli, who once taunted prosecutors as he cultivated a public persona as "the most hated man in America," showed a far different side of himself Friday at his sentencing for defrauding investors of $10 million.

The 34-year-old Brooklyn native spent most of the three-hour sentencing hearing in federal court staring into his lap. He spent a fair amount of time crying, too.

Wearing black glasses and a dark prison uniform, he sobbed as he begged U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumotothat for mercy, explaining that “poor judgment led me here. … The only person to blame for me being here is me.”

In the end, the judge sentenced Shkreli to seven years in prison, less than the 15 sought by prosecutors and more than the 18 months suggested by his defense team.

Shkreli, a pharmaceutical executive, catapulted himself to infamy in 2015 after he raised the price of the lifesaving drug Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to $750. The drug is widely used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that is particularly dangerous to pregnant women, people with AIDS, cancer patients and the elderly. The infection can lead to seizures, blindness, birth defects in babies of infected mothers, and, in some cases, death.

When he was called before Congress to answer for the price increase, he smirked at questions posed to him and refused to answer.

He seemed to revel in his role as villain. Vanity Fair described Shkreli this way shortly after the Daraprim increase:

He is an avid user of social media, where he relishes portraying himself as a wealthy young hedge-fund guy. He tweets obnoxious snapshots of labels of $1,000-plus bottles of wine like 1982 Lafite-Rothschild, along with selfies inside a helicopter buzzing over Manhattan or posed next to a life-size chess set by a pool in the Hamptons. In one tweet, he linked to a video of Eminem’s “The Way I Am,” which goes, “I’m not Mr. Friendly, I can be a prick….I don’t mean to be mean but all I can be is just me.”

During his fraud trial, unrelated to the Daraprim pricing, the judge chastised him for speaking with reporters where jurors might hear him after he strolled into a room full of media and called the prosecutors “junior varsity.”

He was convicted last August of defrauding the investors in his hedge funds, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare. Shkreli lied to obtain investors’ money. When he made a bad stock bet that led to massive losses, he didn't tell investors, prosecutors argued, but insread raised more money to pay off other investors, or took money and stock from Retrophin, a drug company he founded.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said Friday that Shkreli deserved a stiff sentence not because he is "the most hated man in America," but because he is a criminal convicted of serious fraud, according to the Associated Press.

"For years, Shkreli told lie after lie in order to steal his investors’ money, manipulate the stock market and enrich himself," federal prosecutor Richard Donoghue said in a statement. "He will now pay the price for repeatedly violating the trust placed in him by his investors, his employees and the public."

On Monday, Matsumoto ruled that Shkreli would have to forfeit more than $7.3 million, an amount that prosecutors said was a conservative estimate of the money Shkreli made through fraud. The ruling could force Shkreli to hand over his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, which he says he bought for $2 million. Prosecutors identified the unique album and other valuable possessions as substitute assets that Shkreli could use to repay his ill-gotten money. Matsumoto said Shkreli's possessions would not be seized until he had a chance to appeal.

Shkreli has been behind bars since September, when Matsumoto revoked his bail after Shkreli offered $5,000 to anyone who could get a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair during her book tour. Matsumoto called Shkreli's bounty offer a "solicitation of assault in exchange for money," and prosecutors said it pointed to a broader pattern of threatening women. Shkreli was kicked off of Twitter last year after harassing a female journalist.

Image credit: Spencer Platt / Staff / Getty Images News