Karma. It’s a wonderful fucking thing sometimes.
After spending the better part of the past year squarely drawing the ire of the public, massively controversial Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli has had his “empire” come crashing down around him, as Federal agents in the US arrested him, lead him out of his Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, and threw him in front of a Brooklyn Federal Court charged with massive securities fraud.
Shkreli, a money-hungry young fellow with the facial features of a mole rat, entered the public consciousness after his company bought the patent to Daraprim – a drug useful in the treating the ongoing complications of HIV – and hiked the price of it from $13.50 per tablet up to $750 literally overnight.
He later earned further public derision when it emerged that he was the buyer of the one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repressed copy of the
Wu-Tang Clan secret album
Once Upon A Time In Shaolin… for US$2million. When Shkreli’s pharmaceutical dealings came to life and the Wu-Tang Clan pledged to offset some of the unethical behaviour, Shkreli
recently responded in a calm, considered manner.
“I’m getting pretty frustrated by it. I bought the most expensive album in the history of mankind and fucking RZA is talking shit behind my back and online in plain sight. I’m just getting pissed off. That’s not the way I do business. If I hand you $2 million, fucking show me some respect. At least have the decency to say nothing or “no comment.” The guy says “…before his business practices came to light.” What the fuck does that mean? I fucking make money. That’s what I do. That’s why I can fucking afford a fucking $2 million album. What do you think I do, make cookies? No, motherfucker. I sell drugs.”
He also humbly added the following barnburner of a sentence.
“I’m the most successful Albanian to ever walk the face of this Earth.”
Y’know, just so you know what kind of gent we’re dealing with here.
Shkreli appeared in Federal Court briefly to hear the charges against him read, before he entered a plea of Not Guilty and walked free on a $5million – FIVE MILLION DOLLAR – bond.
Federal authorities are alleging that Shkreli has been more or less running an ersatz Ponzi scheme. Ever since a hedge fund he started lost millions, prosecutors allege that Shkreli has been embroiled in a complicated web of lies told to investors and a series of cover-ups used to disguise huge losses as profits.
Shrkreli used client money to pay for food, clothing, and medical expenses. And he covered it all up by jumping from company to company, using each new company to pay off defrauded investors from the previous one.
And this, from a guy who responded to Hillary Clinton‘s pleading to cease his needless drug price gouging with a simple “lol.”
I mean, we all knew some sort of comeuppance was probably due. But most of us probably thought it’d be something more like copping a pipe to the face from an ice addict in Williamsburg, or Bill Murray and the GZA actually pulling off that heist clause to steal back the Wu-Tang album.
But this? This is just too goddamned delicious for words.
Ugh. SonofaBITCH that’s satisfying.
Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images.
