Martin Shkreli's $2M Wu-Tang Album To Be Seized By The Feds

MANHATTAN, NY — The infamous "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli must forfeit his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, according to a court order filed on Monday.

Shkreli, who was convicted in August of securities fraud, needs to pay up at least $7.36 million, prosecutors argued in documents filed in federal court in Brooklyn. Some of that money will come from his Wu-Tang Clan album, the recording he famously purchased in 2015 for a reported $2 million, a judge ruled on Monday.

Prosecutors estimate the $7.36 million is a "a conservative computation of the proceeds Shkreli personally obtained as a result of his three different securities fraud crimes of conviction," they told Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, a federal judge in Brooklyn, last year.

On Monday, Matsumoto sided with the prosecutors, agreeing that the "forfeiture of substitute assets, up to $7,360,450.00, is warranted in this case," according to his court order. Matsumoto approved prosecutors' "proposed preliminary order of forfeiture." Prosecutors had suggested that the Wu-Tang album, along with other valuable assets owned by Shkreli, be forfeited in "partial satisfaction of his forfeiture money judgment." Other assets identified by the feds include a Picasso painting, and a Lil Wayne album, along with all of Shkreli's shares in Turing Pharmaceuticals, the biotech company Shkreli started.

Unless Shkreli wins an appeal, he must forfeit the valuables.

Shkreli is believed to have bought the Wu-Tang album, of which only one copy was made, for at least $2 million. The legendary New York-based rap group decided to auction off the album to the highest bidder in 2015, under the condition that the owner never release the music commercially.

Shkreli's extravagant purchase came to light shortly after he catapulted himself to infamy by hiking up the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent.

Shkreli's securities fraud conviction was unrelated to his price gouging. Shkreli remains behind bars after his bail was revoked in September when he offered $5,000 to anyone who could bring him a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair.

Shkreli is scheduled to be sentenced in March, and faces up to 20 years in prison.

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