Infamous “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, who was released from prison last year, is having trouble completing his court-mandated 20 hours a month of community service, according to a Tuesday court filing.
The 40-year-old fraudster — convicted in 2017 of cheating his hedge fund investors of millions — started his three years on supervised release in September, and now lives with his sister in Queens, according to a letter from his federal probation officer.
After Shkreli signed on in October with the Queens-based non profit Hour Children — which helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and their children — he failed to hit his 20-hour per month community service mark, the papers say.
Shkreli told probation officials that Hour Children “was not responsive with giving him a schedule to complete the community service and that their availability did not work with his weekday schedule,” Probation Officer Ivette Farfan wrote.
Representatives of Hour Children did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
Shkreli showed probation officials e-mails to prove he was seeking another organization that would allow him to work off his community service, the officer wrote, and in February, Skhreli “indicated that he is struggling with his mental health.”
“Shkreli informed that he had not seen his psychiatrist since December 2022, although he reported still having refills of his psychotropic medications,” Farfan wrote. “Shkreli was informed that he would be re-referred to mental health treatment and he was directed to complete his outstanding community service.”
In a follow-up conversation on April 3, he told the probation officer he’d worked some community service the day before.
Probation officials requested the court take no action against Skhreli, citing his “otherwise positive adjustment,” and Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto agreed, ordering the officers to continue monitoring Shkreli.
His lawyer, Andrea Zellan, declined comment.
Shkreli is working a $2,500-a-month job as a consultant for a law office, Christopher K. Johnston LLC, and also is involved in a software company called Druglike, according to Farfan’s letter.
Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in 2018 after he was convicted of defrauding his hedge fund investors by sending them bogus account statements, hiding massive losses and scheming to inflate the stock prices of Retrophin Inc., a pharmaceutical company.
He was released to a halfway house last May after about four years, after getting time off for good behavior.
Shkreli was widely reviled for boosting the price of the drug Daraprim, used commonly to treat HIV patients, from less than $20 per tablet to $750 apiece. He’s also known for purchasing a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album. When he was convicted, the feds seized the album and auctioned it off.
Shkreli’s net worth was estimated at $70 million before he was locked up. Earlier this year, he was ordered to pay more than $64 million to victims of his price gauging scheme and banned from working in the pharmaceutical industry ever again.
