If you thought potential jurors had nasty things to say about “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, wait ‘till you hear what the accused-swindler’s own lawyer had to say!
As the trial finally got underway in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday afternoon — after 2 ¹/2 days of struggling to find jurors who don’t already have a strong negative opinion of Shkreli — defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman implored the dozen selected jurors to look past his “weird” client’s “dysfunctional personality.”
“Ignore the current that, God bless, Martin Shkreli creates wherever he goes. You may not like Martin Shkreli, you may have reasons to hate Martin Shkreli, but that is not reason to convict,” the attorney bellowed in his opening statements.
Shkreli — infamous for jacking up the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent when he ran Turing Pharmaceuticals — is on trial for allegedly running an $11 million Ponzi-like scheme to pay off debts during his tenure at pharma firm Retrophin.
But Brafman claimed the 34-year-old was thrown under the bus by “thug” board members who questioned his sexuality and called him “rain man” after he came to work “in bunny slippers and wearing a stethoscope.”
“He was not what they thought a CEO should look like. These people wanted him to blow up. They wrapped him in oil-soaked rags hoping someone would throw a match,” he said, as Shkreli grinned.
Shkreli faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of using Retrophin’s money to pay off investors stiffed by his former hedge fund.
But the Brooklyn native couldn’t hide his trademark smirk as Brafman served up a series of back-hand compliments to the “mad scientist,” claiming any money he transferred was done with the board’s knowledge.
“The question isn’t going to be whether Martin Shkreli is nuts, it’s going to be if the case is nuts. People are going to come in and begrudgingly admit he made them millions,” Brafman said as his client grinned and puffed out his chest.
And Shekreli’s face lit up even brighter when prosecutor G. Karthik Srinivasan countered that he was no “Wall Street genius” — just a “con man.”
“[Shkreli’s successes] were built and sold on lies. He was lying to get investors money and he was stealing from public funds,” the Assistant U.S. Attorney said in his far more staid opening statement.
For their part, the jurors just looked exhausted after days of questioning as lawyers tossed an eye-popping 302 prospective peers — many because they offered scathing opinions of Shkreli.
“In this case, the only thing I’d be impartial about is which prison he goes to,” one candidate told the judge Wednesday morning.
The lawyers finally settled on seven women and five men — plus six alternates — including a female pharmacist who works in a hospital and three people with accounting degrees.