Shkreli Gagged

Martin Shkreli is almost certainly guilty of securities fraud. The outcome of the case will hinge on whether you can social and news media clown yourself out of a white collar conviction. It’s not even close to a preposterous proposition in 2017.

Everybody remembers sinister millennial Shkreli from boosting the price of The AIDS drug by manyfold after acquiring the rights to the patent. That made him persona non grata in the mass media world overnight. His online rap war battles with Wu Tang and other ‘I’m a crazy mofo’ stunts and posts cast him as the mentally disturbed arch-villain.

Shkreli’s currently mocking the federal prosecutors arguing the fraud case against him. He showed up to the overflow viewing room at his own trial to call the prosecutors the “junior varsity” in reference to Obama’s famous line about ISIS. The prosecutors are asking the judge to put a gag order on Shkreli, including Twitter where prosecutors claim he resurfaced under a new anon despite being banned.

Acting like Trump is not a horrible idea. Trump became President. Shkreli is employing all measures to misdirect attention from the investor Ponzi scheme he used to keep the good books rolling. Being seen as a guy in a battle against fake news, a biased media, and incompetent prosecutors only interested in scoring political points is what he sees as his GOJFC with the jury. His attorneys feel otherwise because they keep telling him to shut the fuck up. As if he could. 

Narcissism matched with intelligence never turns out pretty. Dumb models are relatively harmless and easily appeased. Evil geniuses who love seeing their name in print and their face on television are always destructive figures. Shkreli is an unintentionally super funny guy who unintentionally does super funny shit. Now it’s time to intentionally shoot him into space. Letting the clowns run the circus only seems like a good idea when you’re four, or super high at any age.

_{Photo credit: Getty Images}