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Martin Shkreli's former lawyer sentenced to prison

Martin Shkreli sentenced to 7 years in prison
Martin Shkreli sentenced to 7 years in prison 02:03

Martin Shkreli's former lawyer has been ordered to serve 18 months in prison and pay millions in restitution for conspiring with his client to commit fraud, a New York judge ruled on Friday.

Evan Greebel's plea for freedom was denied by U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, who also ordered him to pay $10.5 million in restitution to drug company Retrophin.

"I will regret every day of my life the day that I met Martin Shkreli," Greebel told the judge, Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal reported. "I'm begging for this court's mercy to give me the lowest possible sentence."

Greebel was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn of conspiring to commit securities fraud and wire fraud last December. Greebel, who lives in suburban Scarsdale, took deliberate actions to help Shkreli defraud investors, FBI assistant director-in-charge William F. Sweeney said at the time.

Shkreli, dubbed "Pharma Bro," is perhaps best known for boosting the price of a life-saving drug 5,000 percent and for trolling his critics on social media. In March, he was sentenced to seven years in prison in an unrelated securities fraud scheme involving two hedge funds.

Shkreli had brashly predicted in livestreamed rants that he would never see the inside of a prison because of sentencing guidelines, and that even if he did get prison time it would be just a few months at a minimum-security "Club Fed."

-The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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