A U.S. court in New York sentenced former drug company executive Martin Shkreli to seven years in prison on charges of securities fraud, Bloomberg News reported.
Prosecutors had asked for at least 15 years in prison for Shkreli, who is mostly known for increasing the price of the anti-infection drug Daraprim by 5,000% in 2015 as the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
In addition to his prison term, Shkreli has been ordered to forfeit $7.4 million in assets.
Before announcing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said the "case is not about Mr. Shkreli's self-cultivated public persona," and that his actions were "extremely serious," Bloomberg News reported.
A jury, in August 2017, found the Brooklyn-born entrepreneur guilty of defrauding investors in hedge funds MSMB Capital Management LLC and MSMB Healthcare Ltd., and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc., which he co-founded in 2011.
The former Retrophin CEO was convicted of two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy but acquitted of five other conspiracy counts, and the judge allowed Shkreli to return home.
In September 2017, a federal judge revoked Shkreli's bail and ordered him to be jailed after he offered a $5,000 reward for a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair in a Facebook post.
