WASHINGTON (CN) — Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical executive whose price-jacking of an HIV drug drew worldwide outrage, failed on Monday to secure a Supreme Court audience.
Per its custom, the justices did not issue any comment in denying Shkreli a writ of certiorari. The case is part of a list of dozens of similar rejections.
“We always knew the cert petition was a long shot, we gave it our all, and we have to live with the result,” Shkreli’s appellate lawyer, Mark Baker, said in a phone interview Monday.
Shkreli, 36, is serving a seven-year sentence at a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, after he was convicted of three counts securities fraud and conspiracy charges in August 2017. He’s set for release in September 2023.
Though best known for his tenure at Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he jacked up the drug Daraprim by 5,000% in 2015, Shkreli was found guilty in Brooklyn of looting revenue from another of his companies, Retrophin, to compensate investors in his failing hedge funds, MSMB Healthcare and MSMB Capital.
In connection to the scheme, Shkrel faces a $7.36 million forfeiture order. His legal team sought to challenge that order, however, by arguing that some investors actually made money on his illegal scheme. They also said the jury instructions were misleading.
They turned to the Supreme Court after the Second Circuit turned them down in July.
Shkreli seemed to express some regret at his sentencing last year.
“The only person to blame for me being here today is me,” he said. “There is no conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli … I took down Martin Shkreli.”
Today’s is likely the last in a series of resounding legal defeats for Shkreli and his attorney co-conspirator Evan Greebel. The former outside counsel to Retrophin was convicted separately in December 2017 and lost his Second Circuit appeal last month.
Shkreli and Greebel were prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Representatives for that office declined Monday to comment.
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