'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Released From Prison Early

Jury Deliberations Continue In Martin Shkreli Securities Fraud Trial

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Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager convicted of securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities fraud, is being released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania early and placed into a U.S. Bureau of Prisons halfway house at an undisclosed location in New York, his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman confirmed in a statement obtained by CNBC.

Following the notorious "Pharma bro's" release, Edmund Sullivan shared a photo of himself and Shkreli, 39, in the backseat of a vehicle on his Twitter account, along with the caption, "Picked up this guy hitchhiking. Says he's famous."

Sullivan is seen wearing a t-shirt that depicts an image of Shkreli smirking while testifying before Congress with the phrase, "Free Shkreli" underneath the image.

“Getting out of real prison is easier than getting out of Twitter prison,” Shkreli wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday, referencing his his ban on the social media website following the harassment of a female journalist in 2017.

Shkreli was convicted in 2017 of securities fraud related to a scheme in which he defrauded investors in two hedge funds of millions of dollars and took the money for his biotech company Retrophin to repay them.

Shkreli was previously scheduled to be released from the low-security federal correctional facility on September 14, having initially been sentenced to seven years in March 2018.

The early release stems from the credit he received for good behavior during his conviction, completing education and rehabilitation programs and having already spent nearly six months in jail prior to being sentenced after a federal judge revoked his release bond in September 2017 prior to his conviction after he publicly offered a $5,000 bounty for samples of Hillary Clinton's hair to his Facebook followers.

“I am pleased to report that Martin Shkreli has been released from Allenwood prison and transferred to a BOP halfway house after completing all programs that allowed his prison sentence to be shortened," Brafman said. “While in the halfway house I have encouraged Mr. Shkreli to make no further statement, nor will he or I have any additional comments at this time."


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