Page 27 - Martin Shkreli Case Study

“Can I play Pokémon Go
now?”

In January Shkreli retained
criminal defense attorney
Benjamin Brafman to defend
him.

He was subpoenaed to
appear before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of
the U.S. House of Representatives to answer questions about the
Daraprim price increase.

On February 4, 2016, Shkreli appeared before the House committee.
Shkreli followed his lawyer's advice and refused to answer all questions
with exception to the question pertaining to his name.

On the same day, Shkreli wrote a public message on Twitter about the
House committee commenting:

"Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our
government”

Shkreli was dubbed ” pharma bro ” the “ Poster Boy of Greed ” helping
to confirm this by his actions and conspicuous consumption such as his
$2 million purchase of the one-off copy of a new Wu-Tang Clan album
said he had not yet decided when he would listen to it. But he is reputed
to have offered to play it for Taylor Swift - if she would give him a **** ***.

This was reinforced in June 2016 when US district judge Kiyo
Matsumoto set the Shkreli trial for 26 June 2017. Leaving the court
Shkreli is claimed to have asked his lawyer if he could go and play
Pokémon Go.

Ben Brafman, Shkreli’s lawyer, told the judge that Shkreli was likely to
pursue a reliance of counsel defense. Brafman had mentioned this in
past hearings. This defense strategy would essentially try to pin any

wrong doing on Greebel (Shkreli’s lawyer at the time of the offences)
the co-defendent.

In this case, Shkreli would likely seek a separate trial from Greebel.