FBI: Sorry, We Didn't Seize Shkreli's Prized Album

Music fan makes epic attempt to get it through FOIA request
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 18, 2015 9:00 AM CST
FBI: Sorry, We Didn't Seize Shkreli's Prized Album
Martin Shkreli leaves the courthouse after his arraignment in New York Thursday.   (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Infamous pharma CEO Martin Shkreli is out on $5 million bail after being arrested Thursday on charges of securities fraud, reports the AP, but the 32-year-old is looking at 20 years if he's convicted. (Still, he's "glad to be home.") Some related reading:

  • An innovative music fan filed what Boing Boing calls "the best FOIA ever" over the $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album that Shkreli famously bought. The fan was hoping that the FBI had seized the never-heard album during the arrest, and that he could then make it public through his freedom-of-information request. Sadly, it turns out the FBI didn't seize it.
  • But maybe there's still hope for the album? Vice floats some possibilities.

  • As for the charges Shkreli faces, they don't involve his price-hiking strategies; he's essentially accused of running a "[Ponzi] scheme during his early adventures in the worlds of hedge funds and, eventually, pharma," according to this Slate explainer.
  • His alleged partner in crime, lawyer Evan Greebel, helped the Winklevoss twins start an exchange fund for Bitcoin, notes the Wall Street Journal.
  • Shkreli seems to have been "surprisingly good at fraud," observes this analysis of the SEC case at Bloomberg.
  • But another analysis at the Los Angeles Times thinks the case shows that Shkreli was "an investment hotshot who couldn't get anything right."
  • Thursday's big theme on Twitter after the arrest was "schadenfreude," says this Salon roundup.
Catch up with Shkreli's odd interview with high school students before his arrest. (More Martin Shkreli stories.)