Shkreli Pleads “Not Guilty” to Conspiracy

Martin Shkreli, the 33-year-old former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, has pleaded “not guilty” to a conspiracy charge accusing him of using employees and consultants to conceal his control of Retrophin, a company he founded and once headed. Shkreli and Turing made headlines when the company jacked up the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine), a 62-year-old drug used to treat the deadly parasitic infection toxoplasmosis, from $13.50 to $700 a tablet, shortly after acquiring marketing rights in August of last year.

Turing’s former lawyer, Evan Greebel, who is accused of aiding Shkreli, also pleaded not guilty to the charge in the ongoing securities fraud case. Arrested in December 2015, Shrekli was accused of siphoning off $11 million in assets from Retrophin – which later fired him – to pay off defrauded investors from his failed hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management.

At the time, federal prosecutor Robert Capers said Shkreli ran Retrophin and the hedge funds like a Ponzi scheme and a “personal piggy bank.” In a new indictment filed last week, the former manager is also accused of secretly hiding his control of unrestricted stock in the company, which prosecutors say he also used to pay down debt.

The Daraprim case set off a national furor over drug pricing in the US.