Martin Shkreli, the former drug company executive who made headlines by jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug before he was found guilty of defrauding investors, was sentenced to 7 years and a $75,000 fine today.
The sentence from U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, was shorter than the 15 years asked for by prosecutors but much longer than the 12 to 18 months Shkreli’s lawyers had sought.
Shkreli’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman told the judge before the sentencing that Shkreli, 34, suffered from depression and an anxiety disorder and was a “somewhat broken” person, whom the government wanted to “throw away.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis had said a 15 year sentence was justified in part because Shkreli’s crimes were not an “isolated lapse in judgment,” but a pattern of conduct including separate frauds for his two hedge funds and for his drug company Retrophin Inc.
A jury in August found Shkreli guilty of defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, by sending them fake account statements and concealing huge losses. He was also convicted of scheming to prop up the stock price of Retrophin, the drug company he founded in 2011.
The $75,000 fine comes on top of $7.36 million in forfeiture Shkreli had already been ordered to pay following his conviction.
Earlier this week, Shkreli was ordered by a federal judge to hand over the $2 million Wu Tang Clan Once Upon A Time In Shaolin album as a part of paying his restitution.
