BROOKLYN (CN) – Reviled "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli left a Brooklyn bond hearing Wednesday in the custody of two deputy U.S. Marshals, after a federal judge said his Facebook posts indicated he was a danger and risk to the community.
U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto's decision to remand Shkreli to presentencing jail detention stemmed from the former pharmaceutical CEO's Sept. 4 Facebook post in which he offered his more than 70,000 followers a $5,000 bounty for each strand of Hillary Clinton's hair they could procure.
Matsumoto angrily affirmed with her decision to jail Shkreli by saying he was a danger and risk to the community, even exclaiming, "Thank God no one has been harmed."
The judge called the hair post a "solicitation of assault not protected by the First Amendment." She struggled to find the humor in what Shkreli called satire.
"I cannot say with certainty that the offer hasn't been taken seriously," Matsumoto said at the end of the hour-long hearing.
Matsumoto told Shkreli’s attorney Benjamin Brafman that she was "applying the law as best I can to this set of facts," referring to the fact that Shkreli's Facebook offer is still standing.
Federal prosecutor Jacquelyn Kasulis called the hair threat part of "an escalating pattern of threats of violence against women," following on the heels of Shkreli's August Facebook posts where he gloated that he was going to have sex with Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca.
After Matsumoto initially declared that she was statutorily mandated to remand, Brafman begged her to wait until next Monday to rule and give the Shkreli team time to clean up his Facebook post's mess and to give Shkreli “a chance to be more appropriate."
Matsumoto dryly responded to Brafaman's pitch to fix everything. "I don't understand why he hadn't done that before today,” she said.
Kasulis repeatedly urged “He has to go in," adding that it’s "clear that he's reckless, doesn't respect the rule of law."
In the absence of taking down the Hillary Clinton post and making appropriate apologies, Kasulis said that Shkreli instead "doubles down and doubles down and doubles down.
"He is not special by any stretch of the imagination,” she added, calling Brafman’s defense of Shkreli's posts an "admirable job of denying."
Brafman called the Facebook post "pure hyperbole" and said Shkreli's followers expect him to post tongue-in-cheek diatribes.
The defense attorney said he was angry with his client, calling the posts "stupid" and "absurd."
Following a month-long trial in New York's Eastern District Courthouse, a jury last month found Shkreli guilty on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He was found not guilty on five other counts, including wire fraud.
Shkreli, who frequently took to Facebook and YouTube each day after trial, was likely transported to Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.
At the bond hearing, Matsumoto also set a sentencing date of Jan. 16.
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