Martin Shreli, a former pharmaceutical investor who was convicted of securities fraud, has been released from prison after serving a seven-year sentence.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said that Shreli had been transferred Wednesday from a federal correctional facility in Pennsylvania to a community confinement program, which is the equivalent of a halfway house. He said his projected release date from federal custody is Sept. 14.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, Shreli, who became known as pharma bro, shared a selfie from inside a vehicle, showing the price of a rare, life-saving drug and raising its price by 5,000 percent.
Shreli, 39, was found guilty in 2018 of defrauding investors in two hedge funds and a former drug company, Retrophin. He is not allowed to serve in any capacity in the pharmaceutical industry because he is barred from running a public company for life.
As part of his criminal conviction, Shreli was ordered to pay $7.4 million, a portion of which was satisfied by the government sale of Shreli's single-issue recording of the Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, for an estimated $2.4 million. In 2015, Shreli had purchased the album for $2 million.
In 2019, Shkreli was reportedly placed in solitary confinement after he was discovered with a contraband cell phone he was accused of using to conduct business, including firing the CEO who took over his other drug company, formerly known as Turing Pharmaceuticals.
In April, Shreli's law firm asked to withdraw from representing him, saying that the drug company, now called Phoenixus AG, had stopped paying its legal bills. The law firm, Duane Morris, said Shreli has no assets with which it can continue to pay fees.
Shreli is on probation. Attempts to reach a representative for Shreli were not successful.