The securities fraud trial against pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli got off to a rough start for the so-called Pharma Bro on Monday after the judge in the case granted the prosecutors’ motion to preclude arguments that he did not intend to defraud investors.
Shkreli, who gained widespread opprobrium for increasing the price of a drug used mostly by HIV and AIDS patients from $13.50 per pill to $700, is accused of scheming to defraud investors in two hedge funds he founded and then scheming to misappropriate $11 million in assets from Retrophin Inc., the biopharmaceutical company he led, to pay off the investors.
