Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli has crypto talk at Brooklyn high school canceled by administrators – as convicted fraudster tells reporter to 'lick his ass' for asking about nixed talk
“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli had a crypto talk at a Brooklyn high school canceled by administrators, leading to the convicted fraudster telling a reporter to “lick his ass” for asking about nixed talk.
Brooklyn Tech High School's crypto club had arranged for Shkreli to speak about crypto, artificial intelligence and the pharmaceutical industry at their scheduled Tuesday meeting after 10th period.
The meeting was later “postponed indefinitely” after the New York City Department of Education deemed it a “bad PR risk,” according to a post on the club's Instagram Story.
A reporter from The Daily Beast then contacted Shkreli to confirm whether the event had been canceled. This prompted the convicted fraudster to post on social media and share his private conversations with the journalist.
In the messages posted, Shkreli accused the journalist of calling the DOE and “forcing” the high school to cancel his performance.
'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Got A Crypto Speech Canceled At Brooklyn Tech High School After Administrators Learned He Appeared At A Club Meeting
Brooklyn Tech High School's crypto club said on Instagram that the event had been “postponed indefinitely” after the New York City Department of Education deemed it a “bad PR risk.”
'I am not angry. Less work is better for me. I like having fans, but I don't want to do any work for them because I'm lazy. So it would be good if it was canceled, but I think we'll do it somewhere else, which is bad for me because I'm lazy and I said that earlier in this quote,” Shkreli said.
Shkreli, who is also known as “America's most hated man,” further told the reporter, “Lick my b**** too.”
In a separate post on
In August 2015, Shkreli's company, Turing Pharmaceuticals (now Vyera) acquired the rights to the drug Daraprim, an anti-parasitic drug used by people with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients.
In September he has increased the price of Daraprim by about 5,500 percent and defended the excessive price increase, saying the company needed to make a profit to continue research and cover operating costs.
He was subsequently arrested on charges of securities and bank fraud due to deceptive practices at his companies between 2009 and 2014.
Prosecutors alleged he used the company's money and stock to repay hedge fund investors for the money he lost.
He was released on $5 million bail at the time and was fired as CEO.
In 2016, he refused to testify before Congress and invoked his Fifth Amendment as he grinned at lawmakers who asked him about the Daraprim price hike — a move he had become known for.
The following year, Shkreli began harassing a female journalist named Laura Duca on Twitter, photoshopping himself over her husband and sending her several messages.
A reporter for The Daily Beast contacted Shkreli to confirm if the high school event was canceled when the convicted fraudster took to social media and shared their private conversations.
In 2015, Shkreli was accused of valuing a pharmaceutical drug company, Turing Pharmaceuticals (now Vyera), by approximately 5,500 percent
He is seen smiling at Congress as they question him about a drug that treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that threatens people with weakened immune systems
He was later banned from Twitter, but created multiple accounts.
His trial began later that year when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ultimately convicted by a Brooklyn jury in August of three of eight federal charges.
His bail was subsequently revoked and officially sent to jail on September 13 after he allegedly threatened a former presidential candidate on social media.
He offered $5,000 on Facebook to have someone grab Hillary Clinton's hair while she was on her book tour.
“The Clinton Foundation is willing to KILL to protect its secrets. So try to steal a hair from her during HRC's book tour. I need to confirm the sequences I have. He will pay $5,000 per hair he gets from Hillary Clinton,” he wrote at the time.
He also bought a Wu-Tang Clan album for $2 million, allegedly bought Jay-Z tickets for $10,000 with company funds and prowled the Internet relentlessly.
He was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors as he broke down in tears in court, saying: “I want the people who came here today to support me to understand one thing: the only person who is here today is the to blame is myself. I took down Martin Shkreli.”
He was subsequently removed from the Fort Dix prison following allegations that he used a smuggled cell phone to run his business while behind bars, and was transferred to the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in Pennsylvania.
In May 2019, Shkreli sued Retrofin's directors and ex-general for more than $30 million and a year later his request for release was denied because he was said to be working on a COVID-19 vaccine.
He was released early from prison in May 2022 after serving five of his seven-year sentence and was sent to a halfway house in Brooklyn before moving in with a relative and remaining under house arrest and wearing an ankle bracelet.
Shkreli, 39, celebrates his release from prison at a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the day of his release. Shkreli is picked up by a friend on the last day in prison. The recently incarcerated 'Pharma Bro' was released two years earlier for good behavior
Pharma Bro Shkreli was arrested in Manhattan in 2015 on charges of securities fraud. A judge later sentenced the former pharmaceutical industry executive to seven years in prison, but he served only five years because he was released early for good behavior.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Shkreli revealed that in prison he was not known as 'Pharma Bro or 'America's Most Hated Man', but was instead nicknamed 'Shkreli' and 'Marty-Mar' by his fellow inmates.
After he was released, he revealed that he planned to appeal FTC ruling that banned him from the industry while also fining him $65 million.
He remained confident that he would come out on top and had already begun working on a new venture that he said would give him the chance to get his “revenge” on Big Pharma once and for all: a new drug discovery software company, drug-like.
Through the startup, Shkreli aims to make early drug discovery more accessible by taking the same software used by multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies into the cloud and crowdsourcing it so it can be used by the masses.
Shkreli has made it clear that his new company is “not a pharmaceutical company” but a “drug discovery platform.”