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Shkrelli: What's his status nowadays

Martin Shkreli 2016.jpg

I  recently read an article about the cancellation of a planned appearance at UC Davis of alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and Martin Shkreli.  Seems like a classic instance of "heckler's veto."

 I don't care about MY especially. The references to MS in this story piqued my interest, though.

You may remember that Shkreli, pictured above, was formerly a pharmaceutical CEO, accused of jacking up prices of life-saving drugs unconscionably and of committing securities fraud in the process. He was arrested by the FBI a little more than a year ago, December 2015.

It struck me when I heard about this UC Davis thing that it has been a long time since I had heard anything more about the proceedings. I gather he has been out on bail pending trial ever since. But this seems like a fairly long time to pass without any news.

There once was a time, not long ago, when I would have been following the case in detail, and I'd know about discovery motions, evidentiary exclusion issues and other pretrial stuff. But the focus of my own professional (and personal) concerns has shifted and I have no idea. I didn't even know until I started work on this blog post the district in which he had been indicted.

By way of penance (?), I've looked into it.  He was indicted in the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. In recent days the judge in charge of the matter approved a motion allowing the defendant to travel to Washington DC for inaugural festivities. That seems oddly permissive to me for someone who had to post a $5 million bond to remain at large at all.

There is a trial date: June 26.

That's enough to satisfy my curiosity for now. I'll come back to it to look at discovery issues some other time.

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