Jury selection in the securities fraud trial of Martin Shkreli got off to a slow start Monday as multiple potential jurors expressed disdain about the notorious pharma bro, who gained infamy in 2015 by raising a drug price by more than 5,000 percent.
Jurors used words including “evil,” “disdain,” “snake,” and “greed” to refer to Shkreli, and several believed incorrectly he had been responsible for the price increase of another drug besides his own.
“I think he’s a very evil man,” said one young woman in Brooklyn, New York, federal court as she was questioned by Judge Kiyo Matsumoto out of Shkreli’s earshot about her bias toward him, as prosecutors and defense lawyers listened in.
“I don’t think I can be fair. My opinion is pretty well formed,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t want to serve on this jury.”
A male prospective juror said, “I have total disdain for the man.”
Both the woman and the man were excused because of their bias, as were a number of other people who either had strong opinions of Shkreli, or had work, family, vacation, and other scheduling conflicts. Almost 70 people were excused as jurors, mostly because of issues unrelated to bias.
By the midday lunch break, no juror had been seated for Shkreli’s trial on charges of ripping off his former drug company Retrophin for millions of dollars to repay allegedly defrauded investors at his hedge funds.
The charges are unrelated to Shkreli’s other drug company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raising the price of the anti-parasite drug Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill in 2015.
Another woman excused as a juror said, “I know he’s the most hated man in America.”
She said her parents are in their 80s and are “struggling to pay for their medications,” including her dad’s cancer drug, which “costs more than $1,000 per month.”
“I don’t think I can be fair and impartial,” she said.
A middle-aged woman who likewise was excused said that when she walked into court Monday morning “I looked right at him and in my head I said, ‘He’s a snake.’ “
Soon after she was excused for bias, another women said, referring to Shkreli raising the price of a drug used to treat pregnant women, infants, and people with HIV and AIDS, “Who does that? A person who puts profits ahead of everyone else.”
The woman then mimicked wringing the neck of Shkreli, who was sitting a dozen or so feet away, but likely couldn’t hear her words to the judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers.
A potential male juror was excused when he said of Shkreli, “From everything I’ve read, I believe the defendant is the face of corporate greed in America.”
“You’d have to convince me he’s innocent,” said the man, who was excused.
Another man who claimed that both of his parents were using Daraprim, which would be unusual, said “I also have friends with HIV and AIDS and can’t afford this drug.”
“It’s in the back of my mind the whole time.”
He also was excused for bias.
Several potential jurors said they thought Shkreli had raised the price of EpiPen, a device used to treat potentially fatal allergic reactions. EpiPen is sold by Mylan, which came under fire last year for sky-high price hikes of the device, but the company and product have no connection to Shkreli.
“I believe Mr. Shkreli is the person who raised the price of the EpiPen,” one man said.
When he was corrected by the judge, the man said that regardless, “I feel that I came in with a negative opinion of Mr. Shkreli.” He was excused.
So was a woman who said she has “very strong opinions” on drug price increases.
“My mother is dying. I wouldn’t be fair,” said the woman, who was excused.
All the while, Shkreli, 34, sat at a nearby table, often writing notes on a pad of paper.
The brash, social media and hip-hop-loving Brooklyn native, who has denied the allegations, was arrested on those charges in December 2015, months after garnering widespread scorn for raising the retail price of the drug Daraprim
The sky-high spike resonated with a public increasingly outraged by the cost of prescription medications. Shkreli quickly threw fuel on that fire by refusing to decrease the price of Daraprim.
Shkreli also reveled in using Twitter to insult his many critics, who included then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s eventual opponent, Donald Trump, also joined in the public chorus denouncing Shkreli.
None of that scorn deterred Shkreli, who later smirked while refusing to testify about Daraprim’s price during an appearance before a congressional committee.
Although it wasn’t widely known at the time of the price hike, Shkreli was under federal criminal investigation for his tenure as CEO of Retrophin, the company he founded and ran before Turing. The company, echoed later by prosecutors, claimed that Shkreli had used publicly traded Retrophin like a personal piggy bank to pay back people who had invested in two Shkreli-run hedge funds with a series of stock transactions and consulting agreements.
Shkreli is accused of misrepresenting the assets of those funds to investors to hide the fact the funds were money-losers.
Shkreli is being represented by a high-powered legal team headed by Benjamin Brafman, whose past clients have included Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund chief who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
Brafman, after being hired by Shkreli, told reporters that he had told his client that he needed to stop talking to journalists. That hasn’t happened. Last week, he granted an interview to The Associated Press.
Shrekli also has continued livestreaming broadcasts online from his apartment, talking about investing, drug development, chess and more mundane matters to viewers.
He also, while free on $5 million bail, has spoken at several colleges, including Princeton, where he recently agreed to pay a senior $40,000 for solving a math proof for a problem Shkreli had posed.
Brafman last week said that offer, along with other monetary prizes posted by Shkreli, had not been paid, and that Shrekli was offering such rewards in an effort to remain in the public eye.
The lawyer said that Shkreli was essentially cash broke, although he claimed his client was worth tens of millions of dollars from Shkreli’s ownership stake in Turing.