Pharma Bro" Shkreli's saga could end with a decade in prison

Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli is facing his day of reckoning Friday, when a judge will hand down a sentence for securities fraud.

A federal judge in Brooklyn will weigh two conflicting portrayals of the ex-pharmaceutical CEO: Is Shkreli a master manipulator who conned wealthy investors or a misunderstood eccentric who used unconventional means to make those same investors even wealthier?

The stakes are high: The defense wants U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto to give Shkreli a sentence of 18 months or less because, in the end, his investors in two failed hedge funds got all of their money back and more from stock he gave them in a successful drug company. Prosecutors say he deserves at least 15 years behind bars for pilfering funds behind his investors' backs to start the drug company and cover up his fraud.

Shkreli, 34, became notorious for raising the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent and trolling critics on the internet with his snarky "Pharma Bro" persona. He defended his decision to boost the drug's price, saying it allowed his company to earn a "reasonable profit."

"Well, it depends on how you define so drastically. Because the drug was unprofitable at the former price, so any company selling it would be losing money," he told CBS News in 2015. "And at this price it's a reasonable profit. Not excessive at all."


Source :- cbsnews

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