“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli tells @Megtirrell he can “do whatever he wants” pic.twitter.com/Fh1aBspjUJ
— CNBC’s Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) June 30, 2017
Over a month after he apparently enraged rapper Lil Wayne for leaking The Carter 5, so-called “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli re-entered our lives when his securities fraud trial began in earnest this week. Prospective jurors described him as “evil,” and one even went so far as to describe him as having a face like a “snake,” but everyone should have known that Shkreli wouldn’t let others ride the viral waves of media attention his trial was generating without jumping in. Sure enough he surprised reporters covering the trial on Friday, dubbing the prosecution as the “junior varsity” while suggesting people “blame me for everything.”
When reporters caught up with Shkreli and his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, CNBC’s Meg Tirrell asked the latter how he felt about his client’s prior comments about the prosecution and the trial. Brafman began with a canned response, but not before his client interjected, “He’ll do whatever he wants.” In other words, Shkreli — acting as his own spokesperson — provided an answer about himself in the third person. Brafman, meanwhile, tried to get his measured statement out regardless. “I was stunned that it happened, and I’m hoping he doesn’t do it ever again.”
Then again, what else would you expect from a defendant who previously live-streamed, “I’m so innocent, the jury, judge and the prosecution are gonna give me an apology”?
(Via CNBC)