Martin Shkreli: I don't think I'm going to jail
Former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, who made headlines when the company raised the price of its AIDS drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750, was recently found guilty on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.
Shkreli told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Mornings with Maria: “There were eight charges. The government made this large, fanciful, and now we learned false, tale of me stealing from my own drug company to pay off these investors and the jury found that story implausible and they rendered, as you know, five out of eight counts not guilty.”
Shkreli plans to fight the three guilty charges, saying, “We still have the second chapter of this starting now, where I think those three charges are very vulnerable to attack and I hope that those charges are reversed or dismissed.”
When Bartiromo asked if he believed he was targeted because of the controversy over Daraprim, Shkreli responded:
“In fact the SEC told me so, which is really remarkable. There’s one very senior person at the SEC who’s now left, he’s at a big law firm, and he said to my lawyer that if I kept my mouth shut none of this would have happened.”
According to Shkreli, his investors were happy with the trial’s outcome and some emailed to congratulate him on his acquittal on most of the charges.
“I was convicted of lying to my hedge fund investors, those investors made four times their money. I made $30,000 running that hedge fund for four years of back breaking work, there’s not many people in this room that would take that deal.”
Shkreli added that he does not believe he will face any jail time nor have to forfeit any money.