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'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli of securities fraud, conspiracy

Posted at 11:53 AM, Aug 04, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-04 17:59:51-04

Martin Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy Friday.

The verdict came on the fifth day of deliberations in Brooklyn federal court. Shkreli was convicted of two counts of securities fraud and a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He was acquitted of five other criminal charges.

Federal prosecutors said Shkreli mismanaged money at the investment funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, as well as while he was CEO of Retrophin, a pharmaceutical company he founded in 2011.

They argued that he lied to investors at MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare about how well the funds were doing, and that he used money from Retrophin as a piggy bank to pay off MSMB investors, and to cover personal loans and other debts.

Shkreli drew national scorn two years ago when, as the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, he unapologetically raised the price of an AIDS drug from $13.50 per pill to $750. That episode is unrelated to the fraud case.

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