Martin Shkreli may have landed himself in more trouble with the law—and bought a longer prison sentence in the process. After the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the "pharma bro” is running a biotech company from prison, federal officials are getting involved.
The Bureau of Prisons has struck up an investigation, the newspaper reported. And if they find enough evidence to confirm the Journal’s original story, the former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO could see some time tacked on to his original 7-year sentence.
Shkreli came to infamy in 2015 after Turing raised the price of a toxoplasmosis drug, Daraprim, by 5,000% overnight. Instead of apologizing, explaining or reversing the hike, Shkreli hit back at critics, quickly gaining fame as the “most hated” man in America.
But it wasn’t the Turing episode that landed Shkreli in prison. He was later charged with fraud relating to his time at another biotech, Retrophin; a jury convicted him in 2017.
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Fast forward to last week, when the Journal reported that more than a year into his prison sentence, Shkreli still has significant holdings in Turing, which has since changed its name twice to arrive at its current moniker, Phoenixus. And Shkreli is essentially calling shots at that company from behind bars with a contraband cell phone, the WSJ said.
It didn’t take prison officials long to jump in. They quickly kicked off an investigation, and the violations could add a year onto Shkreli’s sentence, WSJ reported. The FBI is also looking into the issue, according to the Journal.