Controversial pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli has been charged with securities fraud. Shkreli has previously made headlines for raising the prices of life-saving drugs to fight AIDS and cancer.
Shkreli has been charged with seven counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors allege he ran a Ponzi scheme by defrauding investors in healthcare-based hedge funds.
[Read the full indictment here.]
From USA Today:
Investigators alleged that Shkreli, 32, siphoned millions of dollars from Retrophin to repay investors he’d defrauded in two defunct hedge funds that focused on health care investments: MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare. He was also accused of using company funds to settle personal disputes with investors, unjustly enriching himself with company funds and forming false ties to consultants.
For example, Shkreli told one investor on Dec. 2, 2010, that his hedge fund held $35 million assets, even though it had only had $700, the criminal indictment alleged.
At a Brooklyn news conference, U.S. Attorney Robert Capers charged that Shkreli, with Greebel’s help, used Retrophin as his “personal piggy bank” to funnel millions of dollars in illegal repayments to investors he’d burned in the hedge funds.
Shkreli was recently freed on $ 5 million bond. He has also resigned as CEO of Turing Pharma as a result of the arrest.
Photo by NEPA Scene via Flickr CC License
