“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli shouldn’t get sprung from prison early — because he’s a jerk to women and isn’t sorry for his crimes, Brooklyn federal prosecutors argued in a new court filing.
Assistant US Attorney Alixandra Smith filed a motion Thursday opposing Shkreli’s second bid for compassionate release.
She argued that his “demonstrated disdain for the criminal justice system, both in threats of violence made against women” and “his lack of remorse” weighed against freeing him from FCI Allenwood nearly three years early.
Despite his trolling of female reporters and bizarre threats against Hillary Clinton, Shkreli has retained some admirers.
Shkreli became involved with former Bloomberg reporter Christie Smythe — who professed her love for the convicted fraudster in a tell-all Elle magazine article last month. Smythe, who said she gave up her job and marriage to pursue a relationship with Shkreli, once defended his treatment of female reporters, tweeting, “I don’t think he’d hurt a woman, even a journalist.”
Shkreli, 37, infamously had his bail revoked in 2017 for offering his followers $5,000 for a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair — after a jury found him guilty of defrauding investors in what prosecutors described as an $11 million Ponzi scheme.
The former drug company CEO earned the moniker “The Most Hated Man in America” for jacking up the price of the AIDS drug Daraprim nearly 5,000 percent, for which he was sued by the Federal Trade Commission last year.
The filing charges that Shkreli has continued the anticompetitive scheme, which has forced patients who need the drug to cough up massive amounts of money.
Smith added that Shkreli’s minor health conditions didn’t merit halving his seven-year sentence.
In his first compassionate release motion, he argued that, due to allergies and asthma, he faced “potential death” if he contracted COVID-19.
The latest bid contends that his worsening mental health has “weaken[ed] his immune system.”