NEW YORK – Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical chief executive officer who served almost seven years in prison for securities fraud, is earning US$2,500 (S$3,370) a month consulting for a law firm and living with his sister in Queens, New York, according to the US Probation Office.
Shkreli, 40, has had a mostly “positive adjustment” since being released from prison in 2022 and is currently employed by the Law Office of Christopher K. Johnston, according to a probation report filed on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
The report did not elaborate on Shkreli’s duties or say how or when he got the job. Neither the law firm nor Shkreli’s attorney immediately responded to messages seeking comment.
When contacted by phone, Shkreli said: “I will only comment if you give me significant financial compensation.”
The former Turing Pharmaceuticals chief executive did have an initial delay in carrying out his mandatory community service of 20 hours a month, which resulted in a technical violation of his supervision, according to the filing.
Shkreli blamed the delay on scheduling conflicts and mental health issues and has been in compliance since April 3.
Shkreli also completed his mandatory therapy appointments in 2022, the probation office said, but he will be “re-referred for mental health treatment” due to his “self-reported struggles”. The filing didn’t elaborate on what those struggles were.
Dubbed “the most hated man in America” after he raised the price of a potentially life-saving drug, Daraprim, by more than 5,000 per cent, Shkreli was convicted in 2017 of defrauding investors in two hedge funds.
In May 2022, he was released four months early from a low-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, and transferred to a halfway house.
Shkreli was once a multimillionaire who adorned his wall with a Picasso, drank rare wines, owned an Enigma encryption machine used by the Nazis in World War II, letters by Charles Darwin and Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician celebrated as the first mechanical general purpose computer inventor, and famously bought the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.
Those possessions were all later sold to cover his penalties and liabilities. BLOOMBERG