'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Released From Prison Early
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
“Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli is out of prison after serving a little more than half of his sentence.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed Wednesday that Shkreli, who had been serving seven-year sentence for securities fraud, has been transferred out of a federal correctional institution and into a “community confinement” facility.
“Community confinement means the inmate is in either home confinement or a Residential Reentry Center (RRC, or halfway house),” the bureau said in an emailed statement. “Mr. Shkreli’s projected release date from the custody of the BOP is September 14, 2022.”
The 39-year-old former hedge fund manager rose to infamy in 2015 after his company Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to the lifesaving drug Daraprim, then hiked the price by more than 5,000%.
Prior to the acquisition, Daraprim, which is used to treat AIDS, malaria and cancer patients, cost $13.50 per pill. In an act critics maligned as blatant price gouging, Shkreli upped it to $750.
(That price remained until the Food and Drug Administration approved a generic version of the medication in 2020, ending Turing Pharmaceuticals’ monopoly.)
A jury in 2017 found Shkreli guilty of defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran by sending them fake account statements and concealing huge losses. Jury selection for Shkreli’s trial took longer than expected because so many prospective jurors showed a deep disdain for the executive.
Shkreli has been in jail since September of that year, after he had his bail revoked for offering a $5,000 bounty on Facebook for a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair.
In addition to the seven-year sentence, Shkreli had to forfeit $7.36 million, including a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album he bought for $2 million.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
