‘Pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli, more commonly known as the most hated man in the world, has been jailed for seven years.
The disgraced pharmaceutical CEO was sentenced in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday after crying to the judge and asking for mercy.
The maximum sentenced he faced was 20 years. Prosecutors wanted to see him imprisoned for 15 years.
Shkreli, 34, was found guilty of securities fraud last year and has been in custody since September when he had his bail revoked.
During his sentencing hearing on Friday, Shkreli sobbed and told the judge he had made many mistakes.
‘The only person to blame for me being here is me.
‘There is no government conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli with my disgraceful and shameful actions,’ he said.
‘Pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli, more commonly known as the most hated man in the world, has been jailed for seven years
Shkreli is best known for raising the prices of a lifesaving HIV drug by a disgusting 5,000% for his own profit but his crimes are unrelated.
In 2015, Shkreli was arrested on securities fraud charges after using a Ponzi scheme to defraud investors in his pharmaceutical company.
He argued that because the defrauded parties got all of their money back and then some, he should not have been jailed.
He was initially granted bail and was arrogant about his fate, saying that he did not believe he was ever see the inside of a cell.
That changed in September when his bail was revoked after he was caught offering his online fans $5,000 if they were able to grab a sample of Hillary Clinton’s hair.
On Friday, his voice cracked as he apologized to his family.
‘This is my fault. I am not the victim here… Please give me a chance to show what I’m capable of,’ he said.
Surprisingly, he said he was ‘never motivated by money’ and that his outlandish and astonishingly unlikeable public persona was an attempt to build a reputation.
Even the man’s own lawyer said he disliked him.
‘There are times when I want to punch him in the face,’ Benjamin Brafman, who was representing him, said.
Jurors were told to disregard the scandal which made Shrkeli famous and focus instead on the fraud.
During the trial, prosecutors accused Shkreli of dishonestly using investors’ cash between 2009 and 2014 after having them invest in two hedge funds that he worked – MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare
Shkreli’s father Pashko attended the hearing on Friday with his brother. They are pictured arriving at the US District Court in Brooklyn
Shkreli’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman (pictured arriving in court on Friday) said: ‘There are times when I want to punch him in the face’
He has already been told he must forfeit $7.4million in assets, including a $2million Wu Tang Clan album and a $5million Picasso painting.
Prosecutors alleged that Shkreli inflated his two companies’ profits and misappropriated cash.
In 2011, when he started his pharmaceutical company Retrophin, he is claimed to have used money from its accounts to settle the concerns of MSMB investors.
Among the investors involved in the criminal case against him is 63-year-old Steven Richardson who poured $400,000 into the fund in 2009 and 2010.
Richardson, a retired American Express executive who later became a Retrophin chairman, testified last year that during the course of their business relationship, Shkreli made comments about having sex with male colleagues and waiters in restaurants they visited.
‘I was gay and had a partner, and he was starting to say certain things of a gay nature that worried me a bit.
‘I thought maybe he was saying things to me because he thought I would want to hear them.
‘They just felt a bit uncomfortable to me. He was saying things to me, like, “Maybe I’ll have sex with a guy in the office,” or we’d be at a restaurant and there’d be a waiter and he’d say, “Maybe I should hook up with him.”‘