NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 3: Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears in the courtroom with his lawyers for his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on October 03, 2023 in New York City. Former President Trump may be forced to sell off his properties after Justice Arthur Engoron canceled his business certificates and ruled that he committed fraud for years while building his real estate empire after being sued by Attorney General Letitia James, who is seeking $250 million in damages. The trial will determine how much he and his companies will be penalized for the fraud. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty Images)
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) used a new appeals court ruling made against infamous pharma fraudster Martin Shkreli to support her bid to ban former President Donald Trump from New York’s real estate industry.
In a filing last week, James’ office told Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over Trump’s civil business fraud trial, about the new appeals court ruling against Shkreli.
In this ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower New York federal court’s order.
The order banned Shkreli for life from the pharmaceuticals industry due to his attempts to block competition for a drug, which he increased the price of by over 4,000% overnight in 2015.
Through his efforts, Shkreli raised the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 per tablet.
Daraprim is a drug used for treating toxoplasmosis, an infection that is caused by a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, especially in AIDS patients.
Shkreli had served more than four years in prison after his 2017 conviction for defrauding investors in two hedge funds and plotting a scheme to defraud investors in another drugmaker.
Through having imposed Shkreli’s ban in January 2022, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote pointed out his cruel tactics in keeping its generic competitors off the market.
The appeals court dismissed Shkreli’s arguments that Cote’s injunction had been overbroad and unconstitutionally silenced his free speech by keeping him from even using social media to talk about the pharmaceutical industry.
“Given Shkreli’s pattern of past misconduct, the obvious likelihood of its recurrence, and the life-threatening nature of its results, we are persuaded that the district court’s determination as to the proper scope of the injunction was well within its discretion,” the court stated.
Shkreli’s lawyer, Kimo Peluso, said an additional appeal is likely. He has argued that he has no assets to pay the fine.
James is suing Trump in a Manhattan state Supreme Court, accusing him of widespread and sustained fraud in how the former president, the Trump Organization, and his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, valued real estate assets to gain more favorable loan terms.
During that case, James asked Engoron to permanently ban Trump from the New York real estate industry and bar his oldest sons from that sector for five years while also fining them $360 million.
Last week, the judge finished presiding over the trial in that case, though he has not yet issued a final ruling.
“We write to provide the Court with notice of supplemental authority: the recent Second Circuit decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Shkreli,” Assistant Attorney General Colleen Faherty wrote in a letter on January 23 to Engoron.
She mentioned that James’ closing trial presentation cited the 2022 Manhattan federal court judge’s order, which banned Shkreli from the drug business, as a case supporting the call for a similar ban on Trump.
“In its appellate review, the Second Circuit unanimously affirmed in full the district court’s order enjoining Martin Shkreli from participation in the pharmaceutical industry for life and ordering him to disgorge $64.6 million,” Faherty added.
She attached a copy of the 2nd Circuit’s eight-page ruling to her letter, which Faherty emphasized was not published on a legal database yet.
The former president blasted Shkreli while he was in the White House.
“He looks like a spoiled brat to me,” Trump stated then.
Months later, however, Shkreli later endorsed Trump’s candidacy.
After being convicted of securities fraud and other crimes in the summer of 2017, Shkreli remained free on bond pending his appeal.
However, his bail was revoked and a judge ordered him to be jailed after offering his Facebook followers a $5,000 bounty for a strand of hair from Hillary Clinton, whom Trump beat in the 2016 presidential election.
Since October, Engoron received a growing number of threats against him via phone calls, e-mail and even voicemail messages.
These threats began on October 3, 2023, the day Trump started posting about the judge on Truth Social.
The judge fined the former president twice for violating the gag order, ordering him to pay $15,000.
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