© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesFinger-pointer Martin Shkreli
Fending off a
possible lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry,
Martin Shkreli must prepare for a two-day deposition inside a federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where he is
serving a seven-year sentence for securities fraud.The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general will take turns grilling Shkreli about
whether he conspired behind bars to jack up the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim, whose 40-fold price hike earned him the nickname "
Pharma Bro" roughly half a decade ago. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote slated his questioning for Jan. 27 and 28, the dates requested by regulators.
Shkreli had wanted the deposition to occur on Feb. 23 and 24, which would have given regulators little time to pursue investigative leads before the close of discovery on Feb. 26. The commission's assistant director Markus Meier told the judge the fast-track would be necessary to keep Shkreli from running out the clock.
"Your Honor allotted each side 140 hours of deposition time, and Plaintiffs have a substantial interest in deposing key witnesses, such as Mr. Shkreli, earlier in the process, so as not to risk running short on time," he wrote on Dec. 18.
During his deposition next month, Shkreli will be a little more than halfway through a sentence expected to expire in September 14, 2023. He has been serving that time after a federal jury in Brooklyn
convicted him of what prosecutors called a "Ponzi-like" scheme to defraud investors in his company, Retrophin. Years before that prosecution,
Shkreli earned public notoriety for raising the price of Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 per pill. The 4,000-percent hike made for sky-high treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease common with pregnant women and people with AIDS.
Comment: In recent weeks the French government tried to push through a different but similarly totalitarian bill, but, following large protests and an overwhelming public distrust towards it, it was dropped. However a clear pattern has emerged. The Pathocrats are now sufficiently emboldened - and likely leaned upon by higher authorities - so that, even if this bill is defeated, another one will be crafted that enables them to snatch ever more power, and, if history is anything to go by, they won't stop until they get it all: