America's most notorious pharma exec spent the day after his securities fraud arrest playing online chess, scrolling through women's dating profiles and chatting with supporters.
Clad in a purple PBS T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, Martin Shkreli hosted a marathon live stream via his YouTube channel Friday night, hours after he stepped down as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug company infamous for its pill price gouging.
“Good to be back. I missed you too,” the 32-year-old told his viewers at the beginning of the Friday live stream.
On Thursday, Shkreli was taken into FBI custody after a federal probe of his former hedge fund. Federal prosecutors claim he ran two of his former companies — a biotech firm and a hedge fund —like a Ponzi scheme, looting one to pay off debts from the other.
Hours after his arrest, Shkreli pleaded not guilty and was released on $ 5 million bail.
"I can’t really talk about business or anything. So please don’t ask me about businesses or any allegations or anything like that," Shkreli said during Friday livestream.
Instead, he spent the evening playing guitar for his viewers and poking around online.
The detested "pharma bro" took phone calls from supporters, one of whom offered to buy him a beer at a Lower East Side bar later that night.
Some followers asked the mega-rich exec to play the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album he bought for a reported $ 2 million. Shkreli — who previously refused to play it for the public, saying Taylor Swift could listen to it in exchange for sexual favors — played an R.E.M album instead.
Between jam sessions and phone calls, Shkreli spent time searching online dating site OkCupid, scrolling through women's photos and chatting with a few possible dates.
One bachelorette asked who the "scary man" in some of Shkreli's dating site profile pictures were. He said it was rapper Fetty Wap, and the woman wrote back, "gross."
"Ur gross," the boyish pharmaceutical executive responded.
At one point, Shkreli bragged that his ex-girlfriend wants him back.
The Manhattan-based bro finished off the nearly five-hour stream with a game of League of Legends, a multiplayer online game.
Shkreli did not mention his alleged business crimes during the streaming session. The charged crimes occurred before Shkreli became a reviled household name for his work at Turing.
Under Shkreli’s leadership, the drug company acquired the rights to Daraprim — a 62-year-old drug that fights against the life-threatening parasite toxoplasmosis and protects cancer and AIDS patients — and then raised the price to $ 750 per tablet from $ 13.50.
The pill costs about $ 1 to produce.
Earlier this month, Shkreli said he wished he raised the price even more.
"I could have raised it higher and made more profits for our shareholders, which is my primary duty," he said. "No one wants to say it, no one’s proud of it, but this is a capitalist society, capitalist system and capitalist rules, and my investors expect me to maximize profits."
Meanwhile, Shkreli announced his new company, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., will jack up the price of a drug that fights Chagas disease, a deadly parasitic infection.
In the wake of his Turing resignation, it’s unclear if Shkreli will remain at the helm of KaloBios.
With News Wire Services
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mwagner@nydailynews.com
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