Last Thursday (Dec. 5), Brooklyn prosecutors queried the Federal courts to seize over 7 million dollars worth of assets from Martin Shkreli. Shkreli, who gained familiarity in the hip-hop world after he won a $2 million dollar bid for the singular copy Wu-Tang Clan double-disc album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, is currently locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting trial for three felony accounts surrounding a Ponzi scheme.
Federal prosecutors are asking for a $7.36 million forfeiture on behalf of Shkreli’s commitment to security fraud, along with the seizure of substitute assets which include the $2 million dollar single-copied album. Prosecutors are also demanding the seizure of Shkreli’s shares with Turing Pharmaceuticals, an Etrade account holding $5 million dollars in cash, an Enigma machine, a Picasso painting, and Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter V album.
In a letter to United States District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, prosecutors wrote, “represents a conservative computation of the proceeds Shkreli personally obtained as a result of his three different securities fraud crimes of conviction.” Shkreli’s attorney Ben Brafman insists the forfeiture of the items in interest would be unnecessary due to the weak harm imposed on the investors involved.
“Our position is clear,” Brafman announces in a statement released on Friday. “None of the investors lost any money and Martin did not personally benefit from any of the counts of conviction. Accordingly, forfeiture of any assets is not an appropriate remedy.”
Prosecutors have calculated Shkreli has accessed millions of dollars as a result of the Ponzi scheme. The famed Ponzi schemer is scheduled to be sentenced next year on January 16th.
