Here’s a Video of Pharma Creep Martin Shkreli Flirting With Teens Online
Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO and corporate greed mascot Martin Shkreli is a busy guy. Earlier today he was arrested for securities fraud. But before the 32-year-old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals got fingered by the long arm of the law, he kept up a busy livestreaming schedule on YouTube.
Mostly, the livestreams aren’t very interesting; in general, Shkreli seemed to spend a lot of time playing video games. But on Monday, his livestream included a 90-minute conversation with a 17-year-old, female high school student who attends his alma mater, Hunter College High School.
Where does he find the time between price-gouging life-saving drugs and buying rare Wu-Tang albums?
“If you want to go to Columbia, I could get you into Columbia,” he told the student as he livechatted with her, pulling their Skype conversation onto the screen. Over the course of an evening, he accepts her Facebook friend request, demurs her jokey invitations to prom, offers to write her a reference letter, plays her a song, asks where she lives, what her ethnic background is, what her SAT score is, and whether high schoolers are into polygamy. Oh, and how many black people go to her school.
Asked who his close friends are, Shkreli responded “I don’t have any friends...one of my friends is in Rikers right now.” (Shkreli later explained he’s referring to rapper Bobby Shmurda.)
Commenters on the live chat remarked on how unseemly Shkreli’s participation in the video chat looked.
“BRUH SHE’S IN HIGH SCHOOL HANG UP,” a commenter wrote.
“martin pedo” said another.
“how old is she?” another commenters asked.
“NOT OLD ENOUGH” Shkreli replied. But he kept talking. The banter continued for over an hour, and Big Pharma’s most tenacious John Hughes shitboy took it up a notch by threatening to come to Hunter to beat up another student.
“If Arty keeps talking shit, I am going to go to Hunter tomorrow,” Shkreli said. “I just need a picture of him, what does he look like?”
Shkreli then offered an alternate ass-whooping scenario, inviting a teenager into his home. “You can come over to my fucking apartment right now, I will fuck you up... I don’t care how old you are,” he told the teen.
Moving on from beating up/scamming on teens, Shkreli later read from a Pub Med study on Chagas disease, a parasitic infection. “No satisfactory treatment,” he said. “That’s sad. Maybe I can figure it out instead of talking to you high schoolers.”
This week, Shkreli floated a plan to hike up the price of benznidazole, a common treatment for Chagas disease. Benznidazole is currently given out for free in the US, where it is rare. In South America, it runs about $50 to $100 a treatment, which is important, because many people who contract Chagas are poor. Old Man Chuck Bass took control of the company that produces the drug last month. Shkreli told investors that his new price would run from $60,000 to nearly $100,000 for a course of treatment, according to the New York Times.
It appears Shkreli’s inappropriate antics aren’t limited to louche online teen hangouts. One of his ex-girlfriends claims he also has a history of offering money for sex, and she posted screenshots allegedly showing Shkreli’s attempts to exchange $10,000 for a round of clit-licking on her blog.
Shkreli must face the law on his fraud charges. Meanwhile, it’s not illegal to price-gouge the shit out of life-saving drugs to turn a profit. It’s also not illegal to flirt with underage girls on the internet. But both are fucking scummy.
Video by Nicholas Stango