[dramatic music]
- Martin Shkreli was
the most hated man in America.
- Don't touch my [bleep] camera, dick.
protestors: [chanting] Lower prices saves lives.
- This was--the stories--was captivating the entire world.
- You want to know the truth? He looks like a spoiled brat.
- I do have HIV, you [bleep] sack of [bleep].
- [laughs] That's nice.
- And then you had this whole war with the Wu-Tang Clan.
- That's the guy that bought the album.
- You're misappropriating Black culture.
What culture did you buy?
- I bought all of it.
- Who does not know
that Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to [bleep] with?
- Ghost is in trouble.
Let's--let's be real here, he's an old man.
- He was like Pinocchio to me, like,
and I just want to just put my hands around his [bleep] neck.
- What happened next,
like, no one believed what happened.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ We are living ♪
♪ In the age in which the pursuit of all values ♪
♪ Other than money, success, fame, glamor ♪
♪ Has either been discredited or destroyed ♪
♪ Money, success, fame, glamor, money ♪
- In my decade at Forbes,
I don't think there was a single story that I wrote,
edited, fact-check that was more bizarre,
unexpected, wild,
and just completely insane than the story
of the Wu-Tang Clan and Martin Shkreli.
- [roars]
- ♪ Holocaust from the land of the lost ♪
♪ Behold the pale horse, off course ♪
♪ Follow me, Wu-Tang gotta be the best thing since...♪
- The Wu-Tang, we was coming from the streets
from the projects.
[hip-hop music]
♪ ♪
You know, we love music, first of all.
You know, we just came from the struggle.
- Wu-Tang was designed, right, to come together,
express our art,
to rise ourselves out of poverty,
and to feed our families.
So that was--that was the foundation.
- It's just such a unique concept, right?
You--you have this group of guys from Staten Island.
- ♪ I'ma give it to ya ♪
- We're obsessed with kung fu and martial arts,
chess, and sort of like Eastern philosophy.
The Wu-Tang Clan is one of the greatest acts
of all time in hip-hop.
You know, that's kind of part of the reason
this story took off so much.
I remember the moment when I--when I first got the tip.
I was sitting in my little railroad apartment
on the Upper East Side.
It was winter, 2014, late at night.
And in comes something from a colleague of mine.
And basically what unfolded was there was this guy in Morocco,
living in the Atlas Mountains,
who claimed that he had produced
this secret Wu-Tang album.
I said, okay, like, this is interesting.
I went to my editor and I said,
"Hey, do you want to send me to Morocco
to listen to a secret Wu-Tang album?"
He's like, "Are you kidding me?"
[ambient street noise]
So we landed in Marrakesh.
You know, we're following this GPS,
which somehow has some maps of Morocco
but not all of them.
I'm like...kind of lost.
And that was really, like, strangely,
only the beginning of the weirdness.
We went--we went to meet Yahya...
The artisan who crafted the silver and nickel box
for the album.
- Come. Welcome to the 36th Chamber.
- And he says, "It's a box within a box within a box."
And, you know, he opens the big box...
[suspenseful music]
And then inside there's another box,
and it's all silver plated, everything.
And in there is the--the Wu-Tang album.
Can we hear a little bit?
- Right. I'll play you a small--a small part.
- ♪ Yo ♪
[hip-hop music]
- Cilvaringz, he just called me.
"Yo, I need a--I need a verse here and a verse here."
I'm like a hitman.
When you call me, I put the work in and that's it.
[hip-hop music]
[indistinct rapping]
- Sounded like vintage Wu-Tang, you know?
It was all the energy of 1990s New York.
There were, you know, car horns
and, you know, fire truck noises.
You know, here it's like right back to the--
to the '90s kind of heyday of, um, of hip-hop.
And you know, I just--I loved it.
I was transported.
[hip-hop music]
- ♪ Wu-tang, baby ♪
♪ They rock the world ♪ [echoing]
- That voice sound familiar?
- Yeah, it sounds a little bit like Cher.
both: [laugh]
- Cher's vocals was on there.
Yeah. Wow. It's crazy.
- So, you know, I wrapped up the trip,
went back to the States,
and, um, they wanted to sell this album.
But it was really important, extra important for W-Tang
to find somebody who was going to really honor,
you know, what they were trying to do.
And that's kind of where the introduction comes
between Wu-Tang and Martin Shkreli.
- I met Martin Shkreli for the first time
at an office building
somewhere in the East Side of Manhattan.
The stories I had seen put a value on his net worth
as over 45, maybe $50 million or more.
He was a hedge fund manager.
He'd made a lot of money quickly
shorting some stocks,
and that, you know, suggests
a fairly brazen cowboy personality.
You know, if Snoop Dog
was a CEO of a pharmaceutical company,
it could have been, you know, Martin Shkreli.
I've had a practice for 33 years doing PR.
We're not splashy, we have a very low profile.
And Martin was looking for press relations.
He came, I know, from very humble beginnings.
He was of Albanian origin.
- I was born in Brooklyn, you know, privileged--
No, my parents were janitors, dude.
You're talking about two-bedroom,
you know, four kids.
I grew up in the streets, shared a room with my brother.
I've struggled.
You know, I'm not--certainly not privileged, man.
- My friend who recommended Shkreli to me,
he said, "This could be an interesting client for you.
"He's either going to be the next Steve Jobs
"of the pharmaceutical industry,
or he could wind up in prison."
And both scenarios intrigued me.
[moody music]
- You know, ended up putting out the story,
I think it was around noon.
I think the story was called,
"Why Wu-Tang is only releasing one copy of its secret album."
And I just remember by the-- by the end of that night,
I mean, it was pretty clear to me
this was like a huge freaking story.
And this was not just some kind of
quirky, random, interesting thing.
This was a thing that was captivating the entire world.
[applause]
- Seven albums, nine members
from one island, Staten Island,
from one man, the Abbot, RZA.
- The Wu-Tang Clan secret album.
Finally, they ended up hiring this company
to auction it off.
It was sitting there in a vault, basically,
waiting to be sold to a single buyer
to never be reproduced again.
- We reclaimed the idea that recorded music
should be regarded as a work of art.
- You know, the idea was that they were going to take music
and put it back with the--with the fine arts,
like--like, you know, Renaissance style.
- I think this idea, this concept,
will act as inspiration.
- And after a while, the word finally came down
that the person who was going to buy the album
was a guy by the name of Martin Shkreli.
And the price was $2 million.
- It got in the hands of Shkreli,
and that's when everything just kicked off.
- Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to [bleep] with.
And, you know, here comes Martin Shkreli.
And what does he do? He [bleep] with the Wu-Tang Clan.
[dramatic music]
[moody music]
- Turns out, what seems to have happened
was that Martin Shkreli had put in this bid
and won the Wu-Tang Clan album,
but had not come forward yet.
And in the intervening time,
he starts to do all this nefarious business.
- What I noticed immediately about Martin's background
was that he did not have the usual pedigree
of a lot of entrepreneurs
and startup founders.
He didn't have a PhD
and he didn't have an Ivy League background.
He came from finance,
but also was fascinated by the drug industry.
- You know, there's not much research done
on the Parkinson's.
And if you made a Parkinson's drug,
you would--you would be one of the richest men in the world.
- He had left his prior company, Retrophin.
He was starting Turing Pharmaceuticals.
His goal was to look into the marketplace,
discover diamond drugs in the rough,
drugs that had been neglected, had been sold off
that had great potential to be exploited.
He was successful in getting capital from investors,
knew how to work the financial system,
but also, I knew that there was an existing investigation
into some of his activities around Retrophin,
and that was a bit of a red flag.
But I was assured
that those investigations were proceeding separately.
I felt I had the real deal in terms of a client.
- My first meeting with Martin Shkreli,
he was interviewing for the job.
Our interview was about an
hour and a half to two hours,
and he was the only one
speaking the whole interview.
He gave me his scientific vision,
talked a lot about himself.
The same day in the afternoon,
my manager comes and tells me,
"Well, he thought he were a genius."
[laughs]
I don't want to make a diagnosis of it,
but there is a narcissistic component to that.
It's very common to CEOs of these startups,
of the...these people that came from the business,
mainly in the investment world,
They really want to--people to think they are a scientist.
And Martin was a prototype of that.
He--he didn't really understand the science,
but he was making money for his investors.
And second, he talks a good game.
- At Turing Pharmaceutical, we were all taking our cues
from the in-house communications director.
On one afternoon, I got a call,
and I said, "Is Craig going to be on the line?"
And they said, "Craig is gone."
He basically took off his earpiece
and left the building, as it were.
I thought what could prompt him to leave the company?
And they said, well, check the news.
- Tonight the head of a drug company
who's accused of gouging patients
says he should be thanked.
He raised the price of a drug used by AIDS patients
from $13.50 to 750.
- There's no doubt. I'm a capitalist.
I'm trying to create a big drug company,
a successful drug company, a profitable drug company.
- You see how greedy this move looks?
- These companies are not developing new therapies.
These companies are simply acquiring all therapies
and saying, "Well, now we're going to set
the price at this amount."
And that's exactly what's going on.
- The story was out, and the--
the seismic reactions were starting to occur.
And they happened with great force very quickly.
- If you could rewind the clock,
I wonder if you would do anything differently?
- I probably would have raised the price higher
is probably what I would've done.
- Martin was already speaking to the press.
He was already doing interviews.
- And if you have people out there
who don't have a lot of money
and they need to take a drug like Daraprim,
there's going to be consequences.
And that's just not media concocted--
- There isn't--there isn't consequences.
They have insurance.
- Well, your health insurance has been really great
because a lot of people's healthcare insurance
actually doesn't cover 100% of the costs.
- When I heard about--for
the first time about this drug
doing a 5,000% increase,
immediately got my attention.
Like, whoa, what are they doing?
Who's doing this?
As an HIV activist,
anything that kind of comes against our community,
we're going to, you know, raise hell for you.
protestors: [chanting] Lower prices saves lives!
Lower prices saves lives!
- We're saying that the entire pharmaceutical system
is rotten as hell.
- I think activists, we have the power to remind people
that it's a 5,000% price hike, and that's insane.
- Where this young guy raised the price to a level
that's absolutely ridiculous.
And he looks like a spoiled brat to me.
- Just an avalanche of screaming, poisonous, outraged.
- I do have HIV, you [bleep] sack of [bleep].
- [laughs] That's nice.
- How's it feel? How's it feel?
- So it was just this mob of attention,
like a fire hydrant being pulled from the plug
and all was--it was flames.
Just when you think this story,
it's just this kind of like PR debacle
and, you know, it's going to go away,
it's revealed that the buyer of this secret album
that, you know, the Wu-Tang Clan
has spent six years developing this one piece of artwork
that's going to change the way that music is consumed
for forever is Martin Shkreli, the most hated man in America.
- We meet in March, April, right?
About maybe three months later,
I'm home with my wife chilling,
and Bill Maher comes on, right?
And he goes, "Hey, you guys hear about this scum bag?"
And it's Martin Shkreli.
I'm like--and he goes through the whole story.
I'm like, "Wait a minute. Hey, baby.
That's the guy that bought the album."
She's like, "What? What you mean?"
I say, "That's the guy."
- I never knew this was gonna happen.
Like, we never knew that this was gonna
really, like, snowball into something else.
- Ghost and Killah, I've got to ask you guys, man.
You guys know that guy bought you guys' $2 million--
your CD for $2 million at the auction?
- Yeah. That [bleep].
We just knew that like, okay, this is the guy
that, ah, yo, you know what?
He raised the price on the medicine.
And then you owning
a piece of what we did?
Yo, this is foul, yo.
You don't--you don't take some AIDS pill
that you have for, I guess, what, $7
and then make it like $800.
- Yeah, that's what he did. - You know what I mean?
You don't do that like that.
I don't care if you bought the Wu-Tang.
You a hedge fund baby.
You already rich. You know what I mean?
How could you stand in front of God
and do something like that
to these people that need your medicine?
After that, it just--it just blew up.
- Martin Shkreli was once dubbed
the most hated man in America.
- He's annoyed a raft of famous people,
from politicians to rappers.
- I don't care how much money you got.
You don't do that.
I was just ready to choke the [bleep] out of him.
- What if people, you know, that are in hip-hop,
and these guys take it seriously,
are you worried about the repercussions of that?
- No, they're worried about the repercussions.
Get outta here, man. Ghost is in trouble.
Let's--let's be real here. Okay, he's--he's an old man.
I'm a young man, I'm 32. I'm from Brooklyn too.
Just because he was in Wu-Tang Clan 20 years ago
doesn't make him a tough guy.
- Quickly, Martin became the most hated man in America
and I became his PR guy.
- Martin Shkreli, haters line.
- You're a [bleep] scum bag, bro.
- You know, he was lampooned on "Saturday Night Live."
- ♪ I did what I had to do ♪
- This is the villain.
- I've been talking about him as a Bond villain.
Now I'm sort of seeing him more as Dr. Evil.
There's a clownish aspect to him.
- Dr. Evil.
- There is a clownish aspect to Mr. Shkreli.
- He's really trying to play the role of a villain.
He's playing it.
It was like--it was like a movie trope.
- It's awesome. - Think about your life,
all the [bleep] that you go through.
- Hell yeah.
[laughter echoing]
- I had one call with Martin in the middle of it.
Martin said, "Don't worry about it.
It'll be okay. We'll get through this."
I was, like, sweating,
but it sort of was a little eerie to hear the CEO
who was himself the centerpiece
and had a bullseye on his face
was like, just sort of saying, "Eh, it's--don't worry."
One of the drugs that was in the pipeline for...
for Turing Pharmaceuticals was ketamine.
And I thought at one point, listening to him,
maybe he's taken his ketamine.
[eerie notes]
And the fact that he couldn't stop doing something that was
so, sort of, self-destructive and seemed irrational,
suggests that there was a compulsion there.
- You want to be hated. Why?
- Um, it's sort of like a challenge.
Self-imposed challenge.
- I mean, you'd kind of wonder what is it in Martin's past
that made him who he is?
'Cause, usually, the kind of behavior exhibited
is someone who, you know, led a really horrific childhood.
[keyboard clacking] - Um...
My parents are from Eastern Europe.
They came to America in their teens and twenties.
They had sort of menial-type jobs.
They were sort of disciplinarians.
You know, I have a comfortable, good, positive relationship
with my mother and my father.
- I remember watching one of the major,
like, news channels,
and someone on there made a comment
about the most hated man in America.
And this fire in my belly was kind of like,
this--something had to be done
to get this price of this drug lowered.
And so I was like, you know what?
Let me--let me try to find Martin Shkreli on Twitter.
And I want to message him.
Just say, hey, I want to do an interview with you.
And later on that afternoon, I got a message back.
And it was just like, sure.
That was his reply. Sure.
Has there been negative effects to your company
from kind of the--the internet calling you the most hated man?
- Yeah. I mean, there's certainly effects, you know.
So in terms of HR, you know,
we haven't had anyone leave, which is great.
We actually do have HIV-- HIV, positive employees.
We have a significant number of LGBT employees.
- Already I can see and feel and hear like a different tone
than what we see from a television interview.
You were--you were very different than you are now.
And do you...
I had seen this-- I'd seen Martin Shkreli on TV
and he was a jerk.
And I was shocked by how--how different he was.
Well, actually, let me just start with HIV though.
- I'm nervous. But I'll try.
No Google here, so-- - Okay.
But he was also, like, he was charming.
Like he was somebody that you might want
to be friends with.
Okay. - How did I do?
- You did pretty good. So do you know--
And it was kind of harder
to hate him at that moment.
- I have friends with HIV.
My childhood dream was to cure HIV.
I'm still focused on that childhood dream.
And, um... - That makes me proud, Martin.
When are you going to lower the price?
- It's a good question. I think pretty soon, so--
- Could you say 100%
that the price will be lowered before Christmas?
- Yeah, I would-- I would commit to that.
- Okay. - I will say 100%.
- And then you said, I quote--
- You're the first person to get me to do that.
- Yes. You're awesome.
I was able to get the price reduction
and the date by which it would be reduced.
Like, I was really proud of that.
And so I wrote this article, and at the top of it,
the title of it was like, I support you, Martin Shkreli.
I felt good, at least going to sleep on Monday night.
Tuesday morning, Martin Shkreli was arrested by the Feds
for securities fraud.
And my tweet remain pinned at the top of his Twitter.
You know, "You're--you're the scum of the earth now.
You should be killed with him. You should be shot with him."
[dramatic music]
But what happened next,
like, no one believed what happened.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Today, this office and the FBI
are announcing the arrest this morning of Martin Shkreli.
No matter how long it takes, we will bring you to justice.
- Martin was arrested because
of some of his activities
in the previous company.
- Prosecutors say his hedge fund was a Ponzi scheme.
- That day, the companies stopped to watch.
And there were quite a few people crying there.
- In all, the Feds alleged
Shkreli lost $11 million
in investors' money.
- So Martin Shkreli was charged
with securities fraud,
securities fraud conspiracy,
and wire fraud conspiracy
related to four separate
fraudulent schemes.
- He'd become a-- just too visible.
A symbol for a lot of things
that the world thought was wrong.
I think the moment he was arrested
and taken out and pushed into the car
and had his hoodie over and he was a perpetrator
and did the perp walk-- I'm--I'm Tupac Sh--
you know, I'm--I'm the genuine article, you know.
Maybe it's white-collar crime for insider trading
or market manipulation, but this is my moment.
- His arrest was trending on social media all day,
frequently followed by the hashtag "karma."
- So I've been in the office for 13 years now.
[punchy music]
I've tried a variety of cases
anywhere from La Cosa Nostra mafia-type violent crime
to all different sorts of white-collar crime.
Martin Shkreli appeared to be this boy genius.
Self-taught. You know, really was a wiz kid.
And, you know, frankly was charming.
But what we're particularly interested in was
when bravado and boasting started really transitioning
into saying things that are affirmatively not true.
You know, we knew he was lying,
but to prove fraud cases,
you have to prove that the person was lying
and that they knew they were lying.
- Don't get checked in your face.
- Hey, man, don't punch my [bleep] camera, dick.
- This morning, the bad boy of pharmaceuticals
has been released on $5 million bail.
But still in the spotlight,
he's holding a nearly five-hour live stream
in what appears to be his pajamas saying,
"What do you do when you have the attention
of millions of people?"
- Hello? - Yes.
- Hello, who is this? - Who do you think it is?
The boss... - The boss.
- Is back!
- You know, he was building his own fan base
to sort of have his almost like a quasi-reality show.
- I stole my money. That's interesting.
Maybe you can tell me more, 646-217--
- And then Martin kind of gets into this war
with the Wu-Tang Clan about the idea
that he might play a bit of the album,
you know, at--at any given point,
or he might get up and go to the bathroom,
and you just look at his chair for a while.
- But here we go, what everyone's been waiting for.
This is the unreleased album
that everyone's been talking about.
[music that is not Wu-Tang]
The [bleep]? Wu-Tang doesn't play guitar.
I'm joking. I'm joking.
- You're misappropriating Black culture.
- My culture. - That's what you are.
You act like a-- - My culture, I own it.
I bought it.
- What culture did you buy? - I bought all of it.
- You bought nothing, honey.
- Yes. - You bought nothing.
- He knew what he was doing.
Like, trying to make noise, trying to get known.
He was trying to get known.
I'm checking this dude out right now.
Check him out, check him out.
- He kind of took a shot at you.
- This is the man I want to be beefing, right?
We could play. You want to prank?
Well, do it--we can get it in.
- That's too bad. - I think it's broken now.
Oh, well.
Meanwhile, me and Jazzy,
we're plotting your [bleep] demise right now.
RZA, Ghostface and...[bleep].
[sniffs]
[Bleep] piece of crap.
I don't even [bleep] like Wu-Tang.
- That's what he's good at.
That's what he's good at.
He's the ultimate troll.
- It just keeps getting weirder and weirder and weirder.
- Dennis, I'm going to call you by your government name.
You're not a Ghostface Killah, I'm sorry.
In fact, you know, most people don't ever try to beef with me.
Do you know why? What you guys think?
- They stupid. - Nobody's that dumb.
- I think what happens is that Martin starts to think
he's in a music video and, you know,
Martin Shkreli is the king of the Wu-Tang Clan.
- You're my son. You have to listen to me.
I buttered your bread, do you understand me?
- Uh...
[scoffs]
I think that if you ever say some dumb [bleep] again,
this album, this Shaolin,
I'm gonna erase all your [bleep] from this album.
- And he talking a bunch of [bleep]
like--like he a don.
- Who does not know
that Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to [bleep] with?
[ominous music]
- The feud continues to escalate between former
Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli
and Ghostface Killah.
- I expect him to apologize.
You know, he and I come from--
we're kind of cut from the same cloth.
We're both New York City natives.
And I think he'll--he'll wisen up and decide
that I'm not such a bad guy either.
- And you're afraid to be getting involved in--in the--
I mean, this is like a serious group that is out to get you.
- I think he should be afraid. - What are you going to do?
- That's all I'll say.
- He should be afraid of you? - Absolutely.
- If you ain't protected,
you're not just coming up in the spot
talking a bunch of [bleep]
about a group that been here for like over 25 years.
'Cause you can get seriously hurt. It's hazardous.
[dramatic music]
- I think Martin did what he
needed to do or what he thought
he had to do to get
as much attention as he could.
- Don't punch my [bleep] camera, dick.
- This was a guy who raised prices on medication
to help AIDS victims.
And then you have this whole war with the Wu-Tang Clan,
but as he gets more and more of what he wants,
it proves to be his undoing.
announcer: You're watching "The Breakfast Club."
- Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Angela Yee,
Charlamagne tha God. We are "The Breakfast Club."
We've got a guest in the building today.
He goes by the name of Martin Shkreli.
- All right, so first question.
Are you a privileged, entitled prick?
- No, come on, man.
- Well, if you love hip hop,
you'd never disrespect Ghostface Killah.
I understand you feel like he came at you--
- It was a tough decision. I'll be clear.
- You said you own him.
You said he's like your son. - I don't recall saying that.
I did say son--
- You sounded very slave master/slavish--
- All right, that--let me just end that right there.
You know, that-- that's not the intent.
You know, a son is a word that, you know, we use all the time.
- So you were disrespecting him?
- Of course. - Why though?
- He disrespected me. - How'd he disrespect you?
- Oh, he called me [bleep]head, I believe on--
- Hold on now, and in this event,
a lot of people were saying-- - I recall--
You know, it definitely felt like,
look, the guy was taking shots at me.
In the hip-hop game, as we all know--
- Everybody's always using hip-hop as a--as a shield
and "Oh, yeah, I'm hip-hop."
Like, it's like, man, get the
[bleep] outta here with that.
It's like, yo, at this point,
hip-hop ain't really got nothing to do with it.
Like now you getting personal.
- But you're not hip-hop. You're--
- Whatever. It doesn't matter, man.
It doesn't matter. If he were here right now,
I'd smack him right in the face.
- No, you wouldn't. - Absolutely.
- Ghost is in the other room.
- You would not smack Ghostface.
- Absolutely.
- He was like Pinocchio to me, like,
and I just want to just put my hands around his [bleep] neck.
- I'm just saying Ghostface got a lot of people that love him.
- So you know me, I'm coming from the project.
The project mentality just came over,
and it's like, now I'm ready to flip him now.
Now I'm ready to flip him.
[dramatic music]
Yo, you know what Martin?
You said to the people out there all over America
and all over the world that my goons ain't as hard as yours.
I'm about to show you something, man.
[knocking]
Hold on.
You know what, these is my goons, Martin.
Where you at, Martin?
- If you was my son, I'd whip your ass.
I give you an ass whipping
'cause what you doing is so, so you foul.
- You got to look at it like this.
It'll come back on me if somebody broke his nose.
He's not a gangster, not a gangster.
- You wicked boy--
- You know, Ghostface did respond
and instead of trying to take it up a notch,
there's this sort of appeal to Martin, you know,
to--to be a better human.
- $783 for a pill, Martin. That's not right, Martin.
Martin, that's not right. You hear me, Martin?
I had my sister Asia there.
She was--she just went in.
- I'm talking to Martin's mom. Give him a hug.
Tell him to stop [bleep] over people and being greedy.
- He raised the price. That was the base of it.
That was the nucleus. That was all.
- Boy, I need to put you over my knee
and spank your bumbarasclot.
- Mom, he just needs a hug. You need a hug, Martin?
You need a hug? - You need a hug, Martin?
Martin. - I can give you a hug.
- If he had any inner voice or questioning or self-doubt,
you would think it might have emerged at that moment,
but that just didn't happen.
And that shows a true severed connection with reality.
- Martin creates this kind of strange Joker-ish world.
[dark music]
Suddenly, you know,
we've really gone down the rabbit hole.
I'm sure you have money.
- No, money--money will make you depressed.
[laughs]
When I'm depressed, when I suffer
from a depressive episode,
it's no easier than anybody else's.
And you know,
family's not always great.
You know, family can cause depression too.
- You know, I--I'm going to trust you on that.
Everyone wanted the price to drop.
Well, it didn't.
You know, some people would say,
oh, you know, you got twisted in
to him manipulating you.
Well, they probably got that right.
- Martin always had a good answer.
Even during the--certainly the worst of the Daraprim saga.
But at a certain point, that jig is up
and he was starting to draw
the attention of Congress and politicians.
- What do you say to that single, pregnant woman
who might have AIDS, no income?
She needs Daraprim in order to survive.
- On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment.
- Do you think you've done anything wrong?
- On the advice of counsel...
- They wanted to see you show some contrition,
some understanding, some apology,
Martin went through it and acted as if like,
you know, I'm in detention.
and you know-- and if he could have--
if he had a spitball, he would have thrown it.
- Martin Shkreli never, ever, never lowered the prices.
To Mr. Shkreli, since I have you
in front of me, let me say this.
I want to ask you to--
no, I want to plead with you to use any remaining influence
you have over your former company
to press them to lower the price of these drugs.
You can look away if you like,
but I wish you could see the faces of people
who cannot get the drugs that they need.
And by the way...
- At that point, you know, let Martin be Martin
was the worst thing that could happen
but that, that was him. You couldn't stop him.
And they brought an indictment against him.
I knew it would stick.
So I think that it was inevitable
that there was going to be a trial.
- I can definitely say that it was
the most high-stakes pressurized trial
that I've ever undertaken in my years in the office.
- The so-called pharma bro is due in federal court today.
Shkreli is on trial for securities fraud
and allegedly engaging in a Ponzi-like scheme
to defraud investors out of millions of dollars.
- Well, after almost three full days
of the Martin Shkreli jury selection,
we do now have a jury
for the Martin Shkreli trial.
- It's going to be quite a circus--an exciting circus.
We're going to win by a landslide.
I've got my attorney, Ben Brafman,
and the evidence is clear that I did nothing wrong.
- With respect to the Shkreli case,
it was highly scrutinized.
And the circus-like atmosphere around the case
made it very, very difficult.
There was a prospective juror
who said that one of the reasons
why he could not be fair and impartial
was because Mr. Shkreli had disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.
During the trial,
we had to make clear to the jury
Martin Shkreli told all sorts of lies to investors.
He really did not have a successful track record at all.
He had a series of hedge funds that didn't go well for him.
He had his first fund where he lost all the money,
and then he went on to found
two other hedge funds.
Like he blew up basically both of those funds.
And then he was actually stealing
from his own companies
in order to pay back the investors.
He was not a boy genius.
Martin Shkreli knew exactly what he was doing
when he was lying to these people.
He was very, very good
at manipulating people
or relationships
to induce them to invest their money.
He had been unmasked.
We now know who he is.
[dramatic music]
- How are you feeling?
- You know, pretty good.
You know, there was a chance that the government
could put me in jail for 10 years
and fine me $20 million,
but right now I'm looking at a zero to six months.
So pretty nice.
- Zero to six months and no fine?
- That's right.
- At the sentencing, what the judge found was
we had, in fact, proven
that he had stolen those assets.
He was found guilty of three of the eight counts
with which he was charged.
So Mr. Shkreli was ultimately convicted to seven years.
- Martin cried and spoke very humbly
about the sentencing he received.
All the reality that he had been ignoring,
pent up, and came fully forward like a little child
who finally realizes I can't make--I can't pretend
that I didn't break the dishes
and--and strangle the cat or whatever it is.
That--it's over.
It very much was like having to acknowledge
that my king has no moves left, that I am cornered.
Whichever way I turn, I am mated.
- He ain't made for jail.
He's not made for jail.
- We felt very good about the verdict.
And so, in this case, Mr. Shkreli was ordered
to forfeit his ill-gotten gains
of over approximately $7 million.
- In that $7.36 million,
the government says that includes such items
as that famous Wu-Tang Clan album
that Shkreli bought this single copy for $2 million.
Other things, including a Picasso painting.
- And you know, Martin Shkreli has bought the album,
all this stuff has happened, and how does it end?
It ends with the Department of Justice
being in control of the Wu-Tang Clan album.
[dramatic music]
You know, I just had this image of like
at the end of Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark",
where, you know, it's in some giant government building.
[epic music]
I mean, if you want proof that what RZA and Cilvaringz
did put the idea of a musical album
on the same level as fine art,
just look where the album is...
sitting there in a vault with a Picasso, right?
They're on the same level.
So in some ways, mission accomplished.
♪ ♪
- Well, the government has sold the unique
Wu-Tang Clan album
forfeited by the convicted hedge fund manager,
Martin Shkreli.
The sole copy of "Once a Time in Shaolin"
was sold earlier today.
Proceeds will satisfy the outstanding balance,
but the exact amount was not revealed.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- [chortling]