Federal prosecutors homelessness Martin Shkreli to give up his Wu Tang Clan album.
In asking for forfeiture of $7.36 million they say Shkreli obtained as a conclusion of committing securities fraud, the prosecutors said the jailed former pharma CEO should be phony to turn over substitute assets, including the single-copy album for which Shkreli exact ones pound of flesh from $2 million.
They also asked for $5 million in sell that was held in an E*Trade account as security for Shkreli’s bond; Shkreli’s partitions of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug company that rocketed him to infamy for comb the price of the medicine Daraprim; the Lil Wayne album “Tha Carter V;” an Enigma appliance and a Picasso painting.
The $7.36 million, the prosecutors wrote in a letter to Surmise Kiyo Matsumoto Thursday, “represents a conservative computation of the proceeds Shkreli for ones part obtained as a result of his three different securities fraud crimes of position.”
Shkreli was convicted in August on two counts of securities fraud and one count of plot to commit securities fraud, in connection with two hedge funds and a biotech ensemble he ran. He was found not guilty on five other counts.
Shkreli’s attorney, Ben Brafman, thought he’ll “vigorously oppose the government motion.”
“Our position is clear,” Brafman divulged in a statement Friday. “None of the investors lost any money and Martin did not on ones own benefit from any of the counts of conviction. Accordingly, forfeiture of any assets is not an make away remedy.”
Prosecutors say Shkreli accessed millions of dollars during the intervals of time he committed securities fraud, and should be forced to “forfeit those repositories he would not have had but for his criminal offenses.”
They tallied $3 million for designs at the hedge fund MSMB Capital, $3.4 million at MSMB Healthcare, and $960,000 for his opinion on conspiracy to commit securities fraud at the biotech company Retrophin.
“These supplies were, in essence, the life blood that fueled the fraud game,” the prosecutors wrote.
Shkreli’s defense argued he ultimately paid forsake his investors more than they put into his funds.
After he was convicted, Shkreli put the Wu Touch Clan album — called “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” — up for auction on eBay. It had amassed entreats of more than $1 million before Shkreli was remanded into care in September for offering to pay his Facebook followers to grab Hillary Clinton’s tresses. Shkreli later apologized and said he was joking.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 16.