New York - Jury selection in the New York
trial of former drug company executive Martin Shkreli will enter
its third day Wednesday, after some potential jurors said they
could not be fair to a man who gained notoriety by raising the
price of a life-saving drug more than 5 000 percent.
US prosecutors have accused Shkreli, dubbed the "pharma
bro," of running a Ponzi-like scheme at his former hedge fund
and a drug company he once ran. Shkreli has pleaded not guilty
to charges of securities and wire fraud.
The difficulty of finding a jury became apparent on Monday,
with potential jurors variously describing Shkreli as "evil" and
a "snake." More jurors cited the length of the trial, expected
to last up to six weeks, as a hardship.
The ensuing headlines prompted Shkreli's lawyer, Benjamin
Brafman, to ask U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn
on Tuesday morning to declare a mistrial. She refused.
The trouble continued Tuesday, as Matsumoto asked potential
jurors left over from Monday whether they had been exposed to
negative media reports about the previous day. Several who said
they had were dismissed.
Shkreli, 34, rose to fame in 2015 by raising the price of
anti-parisitic drug Daraprim to $750 a pill, from $13.50, when
he was chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals. The move
sparked outrage among patients and U.S. lawmakers.
Shkreli's upcoming trial is not about Turing but about
Shkreli's management at his previous drug company, Retrophin
Inc, and the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management between 2009 and
2012.
Prosecutors said Shkreli lied about MSMB's finances to lure
investors and concealed devastating trading losses from them.
They said he paid the investors back with money stolen from
Retrophin, which he founded in 2011.
Tuesday's jury questioning suggested Turing might come up
anyway. One juror, a pharmacist, was dismissed after saying he
was familiar with the company, and that he would compare any
testimony about drug pricing to his own knowledge.
Shkreli himself may have complicated the jury selection.
While most criminal defendants lie low, he has sought public
attention since his December 2015 arrest, lashing out at critics
and boasting of his wealth on social media. He was banned from
Twitter in January for harassing a journalist.
One juror was dismissed on Tuesday after saying he was
familiar with Shkreli's Twitter account.
"Unfortunately, the Twitter history is just horrific,"
Brafman said.