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Anybody has the power to become famous by doing something destructive.
CHAFFETZ: Mr. Shkreli, do you wish to make an opening statement?
On the advice of counsel, I will not be giving an opening statement.
Do you think you've done anything wrong?
On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege
against self-incrimination and respectfully,
decline to answer your question.
TRAVIS LANGLEY: What do we consider to be this dark part of human nature?
You're in a unique position.
You really are, sir.
You have a spotlight.
You could use that attention to come clean,
to right your wrongs.
The way I see it, you can go down in history.
LANGLEY: Now we're looking at where we start to think of villains in life.
They have this fascination with evil.
And once you see somebody as a villain, you are then ready to make them fit,
and assume they must have the other qualities as well.
CONGRESSMAN: I know you're smiling, but I'm very serious, sir.
LANGLEY: And if you show up immediately ready to relate to him as human being,
does the villain need a friend?
To Mr. Shkreli, since I have you in front of me, let me say this.
CONGRESSMAN: I truly believe you could become a force of tremendous good.
There's so many people that could use your help, you know?
PATRICK CALDWELL: You're a bro and you embody
the problems with the pharmaceutical industry.
CHRISTIE SMYTHE: But it's not real.
That's a character he kind of puts on.
BILLY THE FRIDGE: Everybody thinks he's this big piece of shit,
and he's got what he deserves.
ANDY POLLACK: Character and ethics,
I think it really matters.
BILLY: It's not him, dude, he's a symptom of the problem.
The story's not over yet.
I can't tell his story unless I get to know him.
We're sitting here watching his live stream, every week,
and he's right downstairs.
September 11th here.
It's October first.
-[PEOPLE CHEERING] -2016, it's been a good year.
January 20th, Operation Find Shkreli.
Okay, Martin Shkreli, I get it. This is New York winter.
I feel like I've been watching Martin Shkreli
for, like, a straight year of my life right now.
No Martin Shkreli to be seen.
Naked shower guy from the building over is back.
He pretty much tells you everywhere he's going, all the time.
That's Martin.
June 26th, day one of the trial.
I feel like a real journalist right now.
Yep.
Real journalism happening right here.
Anytime something new happens,
cut it out,
put it on a board,
mark it, edit it,
save his live stream, that's how you make this movie, I guess.
I don't have to do a thing. Martin Shkreli is making this movie.
He's making this movie every single day.
What I want to figure out is how this guy became the most hated man in America.
-Martin Shkreli. -Martin Shkreli.
REPORTER 1: Price gouging Pharma Bro.
REPORTER 2: Pharma Bros.
REPORTER 3: One of the most hated guys in the country.
The most hated man in America.
He's the guy who bought the rights
to a lifesaving drug, then immediately hiked the price
from $13.50 a tablet to $750.
That's price gouging, pure and simple.
Martin Shkreli doing what he does best,
looking like a real slapable prick.
If you could rewind the clock,
WOMAN: I wonder if you would do anything differently?
I probably would've raised the price higher, is probably what I would've done.
CONGRESSMAN: Are you listening? You can change the system.
He's a sociopath.
That's how the game's played here.
That's how capitalism in America is played.
REPORTER 4: Federal prosecutors charge Martin Shkreli with securities fraud.
Even the courtroom sketch artist couldn't resist making
Shkreli look like Gollum on trial.
REPORTER 5: He was the person
who paid $2 million for the one and only copy
of Wu-Tang Clan's mythical Once Upon a Time in Shaolin CD.
How's the album?
One hundred percent, none of your business.
REPORTER 6: Shkreli came outside, where protesters zeroed in on him.
MAN: Stupid piece of [BLEEP].
You think there's absolutely nothing wrong with what you're doing?
Absolutely.
-Does anyone wanna ask questions? -Bring it on.
[PHONE BEEPING]
Okay, so we found Martin's number online.
Apparently he answers it on all of his livestreams.
So we're gonna give him a call.
SHKRELI: Hello.
Hey, Martin?
Hey, can you hear me?
Yeah. Who is it?
Hey, when are you being sentenced?
I'm just wondering...
Woah, hey! I asked you a question. Do I know you?
No, I just, I saw people calling in on your livestream,
so I thought I would ask a question.
Yeah.
No, don't call me.
Okay, sorry.
No problem.
Bye.
HODGE: The first time I ever talked to him,
I just called him up, and... It's like a hotline.
I think I enjoy that the most, because it's the playing with fame thing.
It's just like,
"Hi, yeah, I'm a person you've heard of. Call me."
Hello?
-Hello. -Yes.
MAN: Hey, hey, Martin Shkreli?
Yeah.
What is this webcast?
Is this something that you do...
often or is it just a one-time thing?
BILLY: He would have these multi-cam chat rooms,
bunch of people on video talking,
and there would be even more people watching.
When you're the smartest guy in the room,
you love making it known to other people
who think they're better or smarter than you.
So I can see why he was trolling a lot of the people.
People just call him and they don't know what to say,
and they're just like, "Oh, you picked up."
And he's like, "Yes, you called me."
MAN: Is this Martin?
No, it's fucking Lucifer.
How may I help you?
No, you've reached Santa Claus.
Yeah, it's the North Pole.
What present can I get you? Fucking moron!
These poor people here, I can smell them from the Internet!
MAN: Okay. I'm watching you on Periscope. I'm a little bit behind you right now.
Yeah, it sounds like you're mentally a little bit behind. What's up?
SMYTHE: There's no sense of allocation of fairness or anything like that.
You know, if you're just calling him randomly,
he's like, "Yeah, it's my time, I can do whatever I want."
You can call me at 6-4-6-2-1-7-2-7-8-3,
if you've got some fucking, little, testicles.
Little fucking balls.
You may know, I webcast my day.
I sit there and eat a bagel. I'm a normal dude, money's stacking up.
That's great. I hope it keeps stacking up.
PATRICK CALDWELL: His livestreams, after that first hour,
it is boring as hell.
It's kind of ironic. He isn't the most entertaining villain...
in terms of the things that he's physically doing.
You're like, "You're just a person.
"And you're a very weird person."
Right, you want some chicken, kitty? Here you go.
HODGE: I call into his livestream, and it's the easiest way
-to get a film made... -Yeah. [LAUGHS]
You get every question answered.
Yeah, he would continue just taking in the people that,
you know, wanted to attack him and showing them a little of who he was.
You can't sit down, have a one on one
with all of America, but he sure fucking tried.
If you wanna punch me, come find me. 48th Street, 2nd Avenue.
Let's just say, it's not gonna end well.
You're gonna meet my friend here.
Blow you a kiss.
[CHUCKLES]
HODGE: After many livestream conversations, it's about time
to move in to Martin Shkreli's apartment building. Whoo!
It's not me trying to be deceiving.
This isn't me trying to be sneaky.
I thought if I moved into this building, I could get closer to him.
I could get the truth.
I could figure out if he's really an asshole,
like the world makes him out to be.
How do you become the most hated man in America?
Price gouging, harassment, stealing?
Or is it being a total douchebag?
Fame or infamy was a performance art.
Whether we like it or not, Martin Shkreli has made his way
into pop culture, unique, polarizing.
Maybe it'll even go down in history.
So to understand this, we need to understand the beginnings,
the small European mountain town of Shkrel, Albania.
Made it to Albania. There's the mountains.
Every single building and store in this area has Shkrel as the name.
What I've gathered from the locals,
you take the Shkreli last name with you, represent pride for the Shkreli region.
The question is what do these guys really think
of their hometown hero, Martin Shkreli?
[SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE]
HODGE: As I'm learning, the last name Shkreli arises from battle and courage.
Maybe that's why Martin Shkreli won't back down to haters,
it's in his name.
[SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE]
HODGE: Well, there you have it.
Albania's forever grateful to Martin Shkreli.
SHKRELI: In my Albanian community,
people look up to me for making it in America.
They're proud of me and my accomplishments,
but if I did something bad, they wouldn't be proud of me.
And, you know, if I did something
that they felt was morally wrong, I'd be shunned.
We like our villains to come from one of the two main backgrounds,
poverty or privilege.
We get the one who wants to rise up and overcome whatever
was holding them back earlier in life.
We can admire that, we may not admire
what they do with that, but we can really get that.
SHKRELI: I was born in Coney Island hospital.
I had to fight my way out of Coney Island hospital, I was born.
ANDREW POLLACK: You know, he likes publicity.
He likes to show the world that Martin Shkreli has made it,
that this poor boy from Brooklyn whose parents were janitors
from Eastern Europe, has made it in the world.
SHKRELI: We moved to Brooklyn,
the most affordable place we could find,
the first rent controlled place we could find,
shared a room with my brother.
I'm talking about two bedrooms,
you know, four kids.
I'm from the block
where people get robbed and shot all the time.
I didn't have a silver spoon.
Made it on my bootstraps,
very proud of that.
CILVARINGZ: Came from nothing,
You know, literally came... His parents were still janitors.
I believe they're still janitors to this day.
SHKRELI: My mom still works.
She won't let me support her.
I keep begging her to let me buy her a house or whatever.
And they're just like, "No."
MAN: He had a great deal of early life success,
left high school for graduating,
got some internship on Wall Street, and he was kind of considered
this boy wonder, if you will.
BILLY: He started off in the hood, in nowhere,
made his way up through the ranks to millions.
And that's not... Not only is that not easy,
that's not really probable.
That's not possible.
That's very rare.
SHKRELI: I struggled a lot.
I went to City College, I earned my way to the top.
I think I should earn a little bit of respect.
There's just this, like, childlike quality where anything is possible,
you can make anything happen, no one can tell him "No."
And if he thinks he can start a drug company, he will.
That sounds nuts.
That sounds naive and insane, but he did it.
POLLACK: Orphan drugs are for a disease
where there are fewer than 200,000 people.
Years ago, decades ago, drug companies ignored these diseases.
It was thought that you couldn't make money on those diseases,
because there's just not enough patients.
So why spend the money to develop?
So, in 1983, Congress passed The Orphan Drug Act,
which gave tax incentives
to help develop rare disease drugs.
If you can charge a huge price,
then even a few thousand patients is a big business.
So that's what made orphan drugs popular.
A drug that's off patent is only inexpensive
if there is sufficient competition.
If there isn't, older drugs can have higher prices just like new drugs.
At the time, it wasn't that unusual for somebody
to take a big price increase like this.
Other companies did this.
This was a business model that had been employed over and over again.
This was a playbook that was becoming fairly common
in the pharmaceutical industry.
And particularly for an orphan drug
where there's few patients, the insurers won't really care.
And so these companies started searching
for these obscure, neglected drugs,
buying them and turning them into very high priced drugs, one of the earliest
around 2006, 2007,
there were congressional hearings on that.
People were outraged.
So, Martin comes along and starts Retrophin
which did that, with two or three drugs.
Their strategy was the same.
We'll take care of the patients who can't pay,
we'll give it away free, we'll pay the co-pays,
we'll bend over backwards.
But for most patients, the insurance will pay, and we'll make a lot of money,
and we'll put that money to use developing new drugs.
Then he gets kicked out of Retrophin,
and then he did it with Turing.
They bought this drug, Daraprim.
AARON KESSELHEIM: Daraprim is the brand name of a drug that's called pyrimethamine.
Pyrimethamine is an antibiotic
that treats a particular infection called toxoplasmosis,
originally approved by the FDA about 50 years ago.
It's been selling for a dollar a pill for years
and after Turing acquired the distribution rights,
then they jacked the price up from what was like $13.50 to $750 a tablet.
HODGE: So why can't anything be done to stop a guy like this?
Because we don't have any laws in our country to stop it.
Unfortunately, you know, the United States
doesn't have set pricing
or any way to really negotiate that there's got to be a fixed price.
It's got to change.
We can't afford our current healthcare system.
I think what we often overlook is that markets
are actually human accomplishments.
We made the market for drugs that makes it rational
to raise the price of a drug 5,000% in a very short period of time.
We made that market.
GLENN COHEN: So healthcare is different, first and foremost,
I think from all perspectives,
because essentially, we need it, we need it desperately.
It's not optional.
Without healthcare, we are either going to die,
or we're gonna live lives that are full of pain or lack function.
And sort of an interesting question
is if he had been a different kind of personality type,
would this story have played out very differently?
You know, I don't think his heart is necessarily in the wrong place.
I think he just thought, you know, the rules didn't apply to him.
SMYTHE: He had found a nexus between the hedge fund world and the pharma world.
COHEN: You just see a human being that's capable of a whole lot.
POLLACK: He was in charge of his own companies
from an early age, so there was no one to say,
"Martin, this is wrong."
The whole story was not helped by Martin being a jerk,
but then something really bad happened. [CHUCKLES]
[PLAYING GUITAR RIFF]
Hello.
[HODGE SPEAKING]
You sound like a weird guy.
Yes.
You sound like...
You kinda sound like a pedophilic macho man.
[CHUCKLES]
Nah.
Oh, yeah!
HODGE: So, what led to this phone call?
SMYTHE: I was covering the courthouse in Brooklyn.
I had a story about him being under investigation.
♪ No flex zone
♪ They know better♪
Hello?
♪ They know better♪
All right, guys.
We peaked at 300, 400 viewers. I think it's time to go to sleep.
I love all of you.
I also hate all of you.
HODGE: The drug company CEO who raised the price
of a lifesaving pill by more than 5,000% has been arrested.
Martin Shkreli, characterized by some as public enemy number one
for the alleged drug price gouging he's been accused of
is arrested Thursday morning for something else.
FEMALE NEWS ANCHOR: Federal officials confirmed to CBS News
that Martin Shkreli faces charges of securities fraud.
We expect to learn more about the case at a news conference in about two hours.
SHKRELI: That guy was banging on my door, "Federal Agents. Federal Agents."
"Arrest warrant. Arrest warrant. Open the door!"
My attorneys said that the prosecutors would alert me pre-arrest,
give us one last chance to show our innocence.
Fucking morning of the arrest, I was like,
"Hey, what happened to that one last chance?"
Hello.
SMYTHE: After he got arrested, it was just like a terrible day,
outside in front of the courthouse all day.
We're all waiting in just drenching rain for him to come out.
And he finally came out looking
pretty unfazed by the whole thing.
REPORTER: Hey, man. Don't punch my fucking camera.
SMYTHE: That's what people wanted.
It's the tragedy completing itself.
You know, like he did something,
It pissed everybody off.
Now he should be punished.
I assumed it was for something related to pharmaceuticals.
And then I learned that it wasn't that, it was this hedge fund scheme,
from years earlier, and I hadn't even known
that he had been a hedge fund executive, really.
Shkreli essentially ran his companies
like a Ponzi scheme, where he used each subsequent company
to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company.
What he was accused off was funneling money
through these sort of sham consulting agreements.
If you rob a bank and then you rob another bank and you repay the first bank,
you've still robbed that first bank.
Even if you gave the money back, you still committed a crime.
He wasn't on trial for anything that America accused him of, right?
Like nobody cared about the fraud shit. Nobody.
They just know "Bad guy. I want to point him out.
"I want somebody to hate.
"and I don't want to be wrong for hating somebody."
POLLACK: It's not hard to imagine that once Martin became infamous,
they stepped up their investigation.
This was a feather in their cap, for arresting this person
that people didn't like.
It was him versus the government, and the government barely loses.
America loves shit bags. They just like it on their condition.
They like to be stroked before they're fucked.
Martin, just went in bare balls.
That was the problem.
[PHONE RINGING]
Hmm. Another caller.
Hello, caller.
-HODGE: Hello? -Yes.
Martin?
-Caller! -Oh, my God I actually reached you.
Oh, my God. You finally called.
Okay, I'm very confused.
Why are you going to jail,
or being investigated?
Yeah. He is being investigated.
-No, I was arrested. -Yeah.
I was arrested.
You, sometimes, in the United States of America, get a chance to post bail.
Especially if it's a non-violent crime.
I have that opportunity.
I posted bail of $5 million, cash.
There's $5 million sitting in an account right now.
While that money is there, I'm allowed to go do what I please.
And, uh, let's see...
The trial. There's a jury trial.
[PEOPLE SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY ON PHONE]
Sorry, there's a lot of background noise. Do I have your full attention?
-Five million. -Do I have your full attention?
There's a lot of noise in the background. Are you at a party or something?
How dare you disrespect me like this? There's 1,000 people listening to me.
And you call me and you don't have the deference to at least
pay attention to the conversation. What is wrong with you?
When I call someone, I give them my full, undivided attention.
Fucking prick.
If we get arrested you're paying for our bill?
I know. We won't get arrested.
I've, well...
I've e-mailed these guys probably five times now,
and no one's gotten back to me.
And so, we'll see if we can get into this building.
This whole area is for pharmaceuticals.
And the head office of one of Martin Shkreli's old companies,
is amongst them.
Retrophin's right there.
We're gonna walk in. We're gonna see if somebody can finally talk to us.
We'll see how it goes. Wish us luck.
Here we go.
You did a foot shot. That's cool.
Should I tuck in my shirt or leave it untucked?
It won't matter
Okay, second floor, Retrophin.
Let's do it.
Okay.
That is not working.
We're gonna try again or maybe just wait by the elevators till somebody goes up.
That's what you have to do to get the story.
Oh, thank you.
Did that guy go away?
Okay, so we successfully made it, at least to the second floor.
I'm just going to wait for a receptionist,
and hopefully there's a way I can at least
talk to somebody in communications or PR. And get a couple answers here.
So let's wait around.
I'm not in a hurry. I'm in San Diego.
I'm not in a hurry.
Here's a Retrophin corporate fact sheet.
I don't see Martin's face on there.
This company looks kind of interesting.
-Hi there. -WOMAN: Hi, have you been helped?
No, not yet. Actually, I was gonna ask you.
So we're just looking to see if there's a director of communication
for Retrophin. We wanted to chat to him.
There's an exec of the company, Martin Shkreli.
We're looking to see if anyone can talk about
our film and talk about him at all.
-I sincerely doubt it. -Really?
I sincerely doubt it.
Probably your best bet is going to be to call in the morning.
-Okay. -And have them put you through
to the director of communication.
-Okay. Sounds good. -All right.
Thank you so much.
But...
No, I'm saying tomorrow.
No chances for Martin Shkreli interview?
He's not welcome in the building.
-We all spit on him. -Really?
Okay, well, I love the artwork here.
It looks great.
-Thank you. -Yeah. Thank you.
I'll call them for the morning. Thanks so much.
I didn't get spit on in the building.
That's a positive.
I think there are several aspects of this story that made it light on fire
the way it did. One was the people who were affected by this price increase.
Patients with HIV, pregnant women, people with cancer.
I mean, these are obviously vulnerable populations already, and to take a drug
and to make it inaccessible to them just seems like the height of all evil.
It got the attention of the HIV Medicine Association,
the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
And then Andy Pollack in The New York Times wrote a big story about it.
POLLACK: One minute after I sent the email, he was on the phone calling me up.
He was happy to talk about it.
Toward the end of our conversation that time, he began to realize
this isn't going to look good in the paper.
ROBBINS: There's something human about putting an actual person into that story.
We're used to nameless, faceless corporations out there just doing evil.
POLLACK: Just a combination of things. Hillary's tweet,
Martin's personality, financial hedge fund profiteering.
The whole situation went viral.
This was something that everyone could attack.
There are things that are done in this industry in terms of pricing
that people try not to talk about.
And he talked about them all.
It's hard to believe that somebody could be so driven by greed.
ROBBINS: People from the pharmaceutical industry
that were distancing themselves from him
as if he was the bad apple, politicians coming after him.
The whole time he was responding, he needed a PR person,
and somebody needed to give him some duct tape.
He brought the attention to himself.
And he also can get under people's skin very effectively.
COHEN: Unapologetically price gouging.
SMYTHE: The social media horror story on steroids.
POLLACK: His willingness to be in the limelight even if it's in a bad way.
CILVARINGZ: Martin just says what comes to mind.
Like he was saying some dumb shit.
CALDWELL: You're a bro and you embody the problems of the pharmaceutical industry.
COHEN: The poster child for bad activity in the pharma world.
CALDWELL: This is a person who is a living embodiment of it.
ABERG: It's 100% about profit.
COHEN: It was just so clear, like, the bullshit was just on display.
SMYTHE: Is Martin Shkreli the most hated man in America?
There would be no negative story about Martin Shkreli that would not get written.
You know, most news reporters are not supposed to use adjectives.
But you could just load adjectives and stories about him,
and it would be fine. Someone called him a human mysterious mattress stain.
If I take that money and I'm using it to do research for dying kids,
I think I'm a hero, let alone evil.
ABERG: He knew what he was doing was not illegal.
One of the loopholes, and he knew it was a way to make money.
Generally, you rely on morality of entrepreneurs to just not do that.
But there are always exceptions,
the increasing costs seem completely gratuitous.
No country can set at our price.
Drug companies set drug prices. And that's the rule of law today.
If you don't like that, you know, I don't know what to tell you.
That's the way the world works.
ABERG: "For those that point a finger at me I point one back."
"It's not my index, and it's not my pinkie." It's like, "Really?" Grow up.
I mean, that's when I was like, "Oh, no.
"We're dealing with somebody that's very immature."
He was able to bring people's emotions into this story
in a way that is needed for people to care about it.
He was a different kind of hateable than your faceless corporate CEO.
And I don't know anyone that gave him a chance.
♪ For just a bill I could cop a little, roll it up
♪ They say Seattle gotta chill I think we're cold as fuck
♪ You want some warmth buy a coffee, hold the cup
♪ Go back to where you came from, tell them that you rode the duck♪
HODGE: Billy the Fridge is a 500-pound rapper and sex symbol.
[LAUGHS] Yeah, a little bit.
But beyond that, I'm a cute boy.
I can't help it.
I'm like the Marilyn Monroe of fat dudes.
HODGE: Do you think Martin Shkreli's a bad guy?
No, not at all.
I know he considers me a friend, and I consider him a friend.
He's a very regular person when you get past the fact
that he, you know, is a very controversial person.
You could put all the clips together where he's being a mean
son of a bitch to people.
But you probably could have even longer where he's sitting down
and just being a good human, too.
But it's not as fun as the fuckin' shit talk. [LAUGHS]
Three hundred dollars. Buy one yourself, you poor piece of shit.
Go to another country, you want free healthcare, go.
Go to, Canada, go.
I didn't spell anything wrong, bitch.
BILLY: Maybe he was trolling to get away from the fact that his world was crumbling.
Fuck you too.
The best thing about trolling is you get to create a world, right?
You're gonna create a moment that is larger than life.
It's unbelievable, but people believe it.
That's all. It's like magic. Ta-da. [LAUGHS]
They're like, "Well, fuck you. This isn't real."
Yeah, but it's part of the show.
You got what you paid for. You paid attention.
I look at him and I see him, as, you know, a person whose great power,
maybe was used irresponsibly.
And he still has a great power.
LANGLEY: The journalists and publications decided to make this guy the villain,
and it was fun. And he loved it.
Martin loves being that villain.
Even his own real name, Martin Shkreli sounds like something
Stan Lee would have made up.
He looks for the positive in even horrible situations.
One horrible situation being everybody hating you.
I guess he just said, "All right, if I'm gonna be a supervillain,
"I'm going to be a supervillain."
SHKRELI: It almost became a thing where I wanted to participate in it and say,
"Yeah, I am evil."
I'll be the Bond villain.
CALDWELL: Willingly and knowingly painted his narrative
as terribly as possible.
SHKRELI: A lot of times people want an enemy. And if I'm that enemy for you, good.
I'm happy, man. I'm fulfilling some need in your life.
LANGLEY: There's this tendency for us to want to dichotomize
the villains and the heroes. To see the villains as all bad.
There's something very human in that aspect.
In the comic books there have been a couple of times
when Dr. Doom took over the world.
Each time Doom got bored with it and created opportunities
for others to challenge him, to attack him.
INTERVIEWER: It's supposed to be an incentive system.
I don't know what it's supposed to be.
It's a business. We're supposed to make as much money as possible.
The Joker understands a lot of the worst qualities of people.
This frustration with the rest of the world at not getting
the joke as he sees it.
I didn't say I was joking. You saw the video. Get outta here, man.
Now you're disrespecting me.
LANGLEY: They'll perceive anything from other people as a threat.
I feel like you think of yourself a sort of Lex Luthor.
LANGLEY: Lex Luthor is also a philanthropist,
The Riddler, he's not secure in his ego, even as large as it is.
The Penguin was this odd looking little kid,
and now he wants to show the world "I'm bigger than you ever knew
"I was going to be."
And Shkreli seems to be very driven by that need to achieve.
We need to know that we've had an effect, that we've mattered.
Because eventually, we're not going to be here.
SHKRELI: Hello?
MAN: Hey, Martin, question for you.
Do you always think you're gonna be the super villain?
The only question is, what are you gonna do about it?
[LAUGHS]
CALDWELL: Trying to understand the kind of mind that has the value system
to get enjoyment from that, it's so delicious and fascinating.
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Most people aren't bad. They just have different ideas
about how the world should look.
This super villain thing is sort of like part joke.
Well, like all great brands,
it contains a kernel of truth, and the rest is marketing.
There's a line in a Batman comic when the Penguin said, "What's the point
"in committing the perfect crime, if no one knows it was you who did it?"
My name is Cilvaringz. I'm a producing artist with Wu-Tang Clan.
I came up with the concept for the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album,
the one copy album, and I produced the entire record as well,
right here in Marrakesh.
In a few minutes, we'll be playing you Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
It will be the first and last time any music from this work will be heard
by anyone else.
MAN: In doing this announcement we reclaimed the idea that
recorded music should be regarded as a work of art.
HODGE: You had some offers on this, but why Martin Shkreli?
He was the only one that really respected it
for the concept behind it.
Music wasn't seen as art anymore.
The way we released this album is the way originally music was sold.
Why not release a work of music as a work of art, as one single piece?
Martin Shkreli looked like a dude that was, you know, into hip-hop.
He was really loving the concept and wanted to be part of the concept.
And we said "That fits."
SHKRELI: The point is, I wanted to show respect for art.
That's something that people are not doing these days.
MAN: Release the fucking Wu-Tang album.
Are you a big fan?
What was the last Wu-Tang album called?
Uh... Bye.
You wanna hear Wu-Tang?
Wu-Tang Clan?
Let's get back to these closures, okay?
Trashy was sitting on my Wu-Tang album. Tried to reach out and pet her,
it scared her.
And she bounced.
I think it's broken now.
HODGE: You think he was disrespecting the Wu-Tang album?
I don't see the problem with that.
You know, it's his.
He can do whatever he wants.
SHKRELI: This is my coaster, as you guys can see here.
HODGE: But he was using the album as a coaster.
Yeah, he was being an asshole with it sometimes.
Like, he was saying some dumb shit.
See, Martin just says what comes to mind.
Tell you a funny thing. You know who has been most on point?
I think even with Martin's story, has been TMZ.
REPORTER: Ghostface Killah, I got to ask you guys, man, you guys know that guy
bought your guys' CD for $2 million at the auction.
Yeah, that [BLEEP] head.
Yeah, [BLEEP] head bought it.
You know, most people don't ever try to be...
You know what?
What do you guys think? Nobody's that dumb.
Just because he was in the Wu-Tang Clan 20 years ago, doesn't make him
-a tough guy. -REPORTER 1: Now you're talking.
REPORTER 2: The feud continues to escalate between former Turing Pharmaceutical CEO
and Ghostface Killah.
If he were here right now, I'd smack him right in the face.
-FEMALE RADIO HOST: No, you wouldn't. -Absolutely.
These guys got serious goons.
They will come and F you up, like, this is serious. Don't challenge.
Nobody's ever challenged the clan.
I think there's a saying you're all familiar with.
-It's called "I wish you would." -[MALE RADIO HOST LAUGHS]
There could be real consequences, in that it might be a criminal threat.
You think it's a criminal threat? What, are you a lawyer?
-I am. -Yeah, actually he is. [LAUGHS]
SHKRELI: What do you know?
You must be on Ritalin or something, man. I mean, take the stop, man.
It's like you a fake ass supervillain, man.
I swear on anything, youse is a fake supervillain.
If we are preaching this dystopian future for music. I mean, what better symbol
for a dystopian music future than Martin Shkreli.
That it ends up in the hands of this most evil man in America.
Nah, I'm cool.
Yeah, so I'm just doing an interview.
Real quick.
I'll talk to you in a minute.
All right.
Let me tell you something about Martin Shkreli.
He wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.
He wouldn't do none of that shit.
He ain't no gangster.
I ain't no gangster.
You know what I mean? I'll just put that work in.
Where it needs to be put in. You see what I am saying?
You wanna jump from $13 to $750 for one fucking pill.
Like, yo,
that shit better make you live for a million years.
That move he did was a fake ass gangster move.
You know what I mean? Doing that shit like that.
But then you're going to start all this commotion and beefing
and doing all this dumb shit, like, "Fuck that guy's face, I'll smack..."
It's like, nigga, you see me right now, you wouldn't do shit.
It's not even in your heart, you know what I mean?
I read you.
I'm talking about, I'll look you dead in your fucking eyes, B.
And from head to toe and just see what type of nigga you is.
You see what I'm saying? He's not that dude.
And I'm not the one to promote violence.
But for him, well, I don't give a fuck.
HODGE: So, this kid buys this album, named Martin Shkreli.
I don't want to talk about Shkreli no more. Fuck Shkreli.
I don't want to talk about this fucking motherfucker no more.
YIANNOPOULOS: The best example of him using money
for nihilistic political ends is the album.
If you're gonna buy the Wu-Tang album, which is gonna really annoy
millions of Americans, go the whole way and fucking burn the thing.
Melt it on a livestream. And that's what I would have done.
If I'd had the money available, I would have melted it.
I would have liked to have taken it.
Here we have Milo. Take one.
There'll only be one take. We'll only need one take.
One will be fine. We're in the hands of very experienced professionals.
REPORTER 1: Extra security on hand ahead of an appearance
by ultra conservative columnist Milo Yiannopoulos.
REPORTER 2: Speech shutdown tonight after protesters converge on campus
where a pair of controversial political speakers were scheduled to talk.
REPORTER 3: When former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli
emerged from the building,
demonstrators forced him back into the police line.
MAN: You're about being a fucking cocksucker who raised the drug prices
for cancer patients, you fucking piece of shit!
[CROWD CLAMORING ANGRILY]
YIANNOPOULOUS: Daddy Will Save Us.
Just kind of like a conceptual art show.
Anti-political correctness. You know, burn the house down
kind of feeling of surrounding Trump.
People don't feel able to make the joke they wanna make.
Use the language they want to use, express the opinion
that they previously thought that they wanted to.
This is devastating.
Devastating for culture, it's the worst imaginable thing to do
at precisely the time when we should be celebrating all that is great.
We're producing culture that is utterly moribund
and completely uninteresting.
And expecting that it will by itself save us.
And it won't. But Daddy might save us, and that was the point of the art show.
HODGE: Let's talk about this art show, 'cause I was there.
You were? You liked it?
HODGE: No, it was actually kind of scary.
YIANNOPOULOS: It was kind of a little bit weird, a little bit creepy that there was
an opportunity for disruptive art created by conservatives
to make a mark on culture.
Hi, I'm Martin Shkreli and I'm one of the contributing artists here tonight.
He had a pill, a Daraprim pill,
just on display with the price tag.
This pill represents to me,
the purity and the pricelessness of life.
At the end of the day, we all want to be healthy.
We all want to be successful and happy.
I'm happy to be here and supporting the conservative movement
here in New York City, which is overwhelmingly liberal.
I think conservatives need to stick together.
And thank you, everyone, for having me.
HODGE: That's him.
-Howdy. -Nice to meet you.
Not bad.
HODGE: So there's one part of the story that nobody knows.
YIANNOPOULOUS: I like being the first person to know things.
I decided to move into Martin's apartment building
and get closer to him,
and find out who he really is.
[LAUGHS] Okay.
You just decided to live in his apartment building,
that's where you want to go.
You want to go there, you know what I mean? You paid for it.
Yeah, so...
It is what it is. What you find out?
[HODGE SPEAKING]
Okay. So, yeah. So, you know. That's it.
-Yes, you're Brent. Okay. -Okay.
-Good to meet you. -Meet my friend, James.
-James. Yeah. -Big night.
-See you man -Good luck.
-I'll see you in the building, man. -I'll see you, there. bye.
All right, so...
HODGE: Do you think that's a way
to maybe get this film done, so that you could speak to him?
Do you think that's going to out-troll the troll?
No, I think he'd find that hilariously,
hilariously pathetic.
Um... [LAUGHS]
Okay, well, out-trolling a troll...
When you're trolling, you have to find the weak points to attack, right?
So I've trolled Martin a couple of times
just messing with him.
You kind of have to go for the fact
that he cared about me in a way, you know, I was his buddy.
So there's definitely ways to troll the troll.
You find what they care about, exploit it.
If you had a cool, calm, collective attack on Martin,
play it through, then he's usually pretty chill about it.
He'd be like, "Okay, you got me."
But if you open that can of worms, you better be ready to eat those worms.
SHKRELI: Hello. HODGE: Hey, is this Martin?
Who the fuck is this?
Okay, Martin is online.
Here we go. Calling into the livestream.
Wish us luck.
Hello.
Hello. What are you saying?
Dude. Do you mind if I hang up on you?
I wouldn't say it's the easiest way to make a film,
but there is definitely access.
He's available.
I don't give a fuck if you judge me.
Real recognizes real.
He's basically answering all the questions I've ever had
right here on his livestream.
I know every kind of martial art there is.
I do think this back and forth is about as close as you can get to Martin Shkreli.
If you really want to talk some shit, give me a call. Hello?
HODGE: I see him around.
I've been running into him on the streets.
I go to his meet-ups.
Let's not forget, we share the same view.
A naked shower guy, every night.
Yeah, I still don't really know who the real Martin Shkreli is.
You're lying because you're a chicken,
over-privileged piece of shit, scared shitless, kid.
And I will nunchuck you into another fucking multi-verse
if you ever privilege out me again.
HODGE: Okay.
I'm just so fucking exhausted from watching this guy.
It's funny. Even though you watch him online like this.
So you're a fat broke loser, who uses Mom's cell phone to call me
and tell me that his name is Jerkin-my-dad-off.
He talks shit to people.
He's just kind of a piece of shit.
And yet,
I cannot help but feel sorry for him, sometimes.
[FAKE SOBS]
Don't look at me.
Don't fucking look at me.
Get the camera out of my face.
Bullshit.
Gonna be alone forever.
He...
won't amount to anything.
He's not important in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe he is.
I guess the trial will determine that.
And I'm sure the media will cover it.
REPORTER 1: The Securities fraud trial of Martin Shkreli.
REPORTER 2: A trial date, has been set for Martin Shkreli.
SHKRELI: The trial's gonna start in June.
That's going to be quite a circus. An exciting circus.
We're going to win by a landslide.
The evidence is clear that I did nothing wrong.
A billion dollars goes missing, that's fraud.
My investors sent me Christmas cards.
REPORTER 3: Charged with Securities fraud.
REPORTER 4: Federal prosecutors say Shkreli cheated investors out of more than
$11 million in a Ponzi scheme.
If convicted, the 34-year-old could spend up to 20 years in prison.
REPORTER 5: Shkreli's lawyer Ben Brafman,
arguing that the trial is very complex.
NEWS HOST: You have a new legal team in place.
This is a lawyer who is very well known.
SHKRELI: I have hired Ben Brafman to represent me going forward.
His track record is impeccable.
I'm a person who people come to when they are in serious trouble.
Martin was in serious trouble.
Every once in a while I come across a Martin Shkreli
who's unique in so many ways that the challenge is just,
you know, too interesting to avoid.
It's my job to make the system work fairly and honestly.
You put someone in handcuffs and take them away,
you've changed their life forever.
The presumption of innocence be damned.
If we don't require the application of the rules,
then I think as a society we're really not a democracy.
Sometimes, I'm the only person who is standing next to you.
When you are a high profile person who is being vilified,
I'm like a life boat.
If everything works perfectly, we're gonna be able to save you.
It's got to work perfectly, and you've got to be fortunate.
You've got to be quiet for the next two years.
Typically, when you have a defendant who's on trial, they're on their best behavior.
The prosecution should be embarrassed.
They barely did their homework.
Why do they keep coming after you?
You know, I just can't fathom,
I guess it might have something to do with me being very handsome,
-very wealthy, and very funny. -[LAUGHS]
Your attorney can't be glad that you're out here.
I'm very different from a lot of his other clients.
There were times when I wanted to, you know,
wrap my arms around Martin and hug him.
There were times when I wanted to punch him in the face.
SMYTHE: You don't really cage Martin Shkreli.
You just can't.
You can't tell someone who thrives in conflict to not create more conflict.
You can't tell someone, who, you know...
thrives online to not be online.
HODGE: Martin Shkreli and women.
How would you define the girls in his life?
It's really hard to define.
I mean, there's a lot of, especially lately, a lot of young ones.
The ones I've spoken to all seem like, you know,
people you'd want to sit down, and have a conversation with.
HODGE: How did you first come across, Martin?
So, I was going through my Tinder.
I saw that I had a super like.
I saw that it looked like Martin Shkreli.
I swiped right thinking that someone had done a catfish profile.
But it wasn't a catfish.
It was really Martin.
HODGE: So, tell me, what was this date like?
COLLIER: Better than a lot of dates, because he...
He picked the place.
He checked if they had a vegetarian option and he was relatively on time.
So we ordered food.
And then we had seen on the menu that they had this really expensive tea
that was $120.
This gold medal, Sencha.
Who would order a $120 tea?
And he orders it.
And I said, "Did you like it?"
And he said, "Oh, well, you know, I'm not much of a tea drinker, but it was good."
Why did you order the tea?
Okay, so just got here to California.
This is where Martin Shkreli's ex-girlfriend lives.
As I enter the house,
I can see that she's gotten in
a little bit of a fight with her neighbors.
Every time she passes by their new fence that they put up,
she decides to give them the finger.
And so now they've posted photos of her doing this.
So I think it's a fair conclusion to say that Martin Shkreli's girlfriends
maybe have some trolling qualities similar to him.
What do you see in Martin Shkreli?
Very intelligent, the most intelligent person I've ever met.
I find intelligence to be incredibly attractive
and incredibly important, and it's hard to find.
HODGE: How long did you guys date for?
HAYDEN: For about a year.
But on and off, mostly off.
But, yeah, about a year.
There were times where I just felt like
there's no other person that I connect with better,
because I studied math and I was really concerned
that I wouldn't find somebody who shared a lot of the same interests as me.
We got into a cab one time,
I look over at him and I was like,
"I wonder what the probability of stepping in the same cab twice is?"
And he goes, "That's a great question. Let's sit and figure it out."
And he looks up at the top of the cab.
Based off those numbers and those letters, we could assume that they repeat
and therefore, there's this many taxis out in New York,
assuming 60% of them are in commission and currently running
and they run this many hours of a day.
And we sat there and did the math together
and that was the most fun that I've had in a while.
And when we got home, we Google searched
the numbers that we approximated and we were pretty spot on.
That was like the nerdiest romance ever.
But, yeah, I thought it was romantic. [LAUGHS]
SHKRELI: Lesson number one.
I'm not a fucking nice person.
Okay.
I'm not.
BILLY: How could he?
How could you?
Let's see how far we can take this.
Let's see how evil I could be in front of you.
People are the butt of the joke, and that's okay,
as long as, you know, you're not trying to
tear somebody's life apart. You can poke,
just don't push, I guess.
We're so used to polishing our image for everyone all the time.
And here's this person who's kind of famous because he doesn't care.
Martin, you are now the slightly famous
webcam personality you grew up connecting with
because like me, you have trouble maintaining real relationships.
SMYTHE: It's a little twisted, it's strange, sometimes a little uncomfortable.
I mean, he's good at getting under people's skin,
and I think he thinks it's fun.
How about that, fuck boy? [LAUGHS OBNOXIOUSLY]
MAN: Nah, man.
Okay. So next time I fuck your mom, I'm just gonna let her know, okay?
You claim to love black culture so much
by trying to get in with all the rappers.
-My culture, I bought it. -That's, not like a...
-I bought the culture, it's mine! -How do you...
But let me tell you something. With enough money, I'll be black.
He just has this unfathomable well of potential for mischief or harm,
I guess. I don't personally think that he's dangerous,
but I guess, I mean...
REPORTER: Universally loathed
Martin Shkreli has decided to buy domain names of specific reporters
who have posted critical articles on him and use those to harass them.
I basically wrote something along the lines
of "Martin Shkreli has finally found a woman who's willing to date him."
Very shortly afterwards,
like ten days later, he bought my domain name.
It was obvious from my first conversation with him,
he made things personal.
He wanted to talk to me after that,
he actually called me to try to "bury the hatchet."
And I told him, "There's no hatchet to bury."
I'm a reporter.
There's no personal anything here.
He obviously didn't like that.
And like that week he bought the URL of my name.
Do you feel badly about what's happening?
No. In fact, we're increasing access to patients.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Nobody I've ever reported on has ever acted like this.
Why does he go after women like that?
Yeah.
There was a situation involving a writer we were discussing,
he didn't like what this writer said.
I suggested one approach he could take,
and then Martin goes, "No, when they go low, I go lower."
I'm like, "No, not a good way to go about things."
He really is, I think part of a tribe of people.
You know, he's aligned himself with Milo Yiannopoulos.
This is a new part of our culture.
Martin, I think, has always suffered from having
a more nihilistic bend than I do, perhaps.
I think that it hasn't always been clear
what exactly he is advocating for,
although it's clear what he doesn't like.
And that's a problem.
It was difficult, and I tried my best to sort of tune it out.
But I also have to, you know, deal with the concern
that our jurors are listening to this.
You need to be more disciplined than Martin Shkreli to resist that temptation.
I don't need more problems than the case brings to it.
HODGE: I don't know if he knows the damage that he does
with some of his actions and words, though.
How much damage does he do?
-HODGE: Well... -He's contributing to a discussion, right?
And at the end of the day, he's the bad guy.
You don't only get Martin Shkreli, you get,
you know... You get the people that love Martin Shkreli.
You have no idea who his followers are or what they're capable of.
BILLY: The livestream was a place that we went to hang out as, like, buddies.
Martin attracted everybody.
And that means the place to be for shit bags.
Criminal motherfuckers.
We'll hunt down the clown together, I promise.
BILLY: And the people that had the guns,
probably were the last ones that would ever use them.
And they're all scumbags, right?
'Cause scumbags are persistent.
There was... Was it Duca?
Was it Lauren Duca or whatever?
This is my last will and testament.
Lauren, I know you love me.
I know that we belong together. Okay?
SMYTHE: The Lauren Duca thing.
He just thought it would be fun to make up this whole stupid romance thing.
He had a plus one for "the inaug"
and wondered if she wanted to go, and she very publicly said
that she would rather eat her own organs.
He responded by turning his Twitter into, essentially a shrine.
Part of being popular is having fans who Photoshop and make collages.
I saw some photographs of your husband.
He, is not pure or desirable in any way.
SAUL: He pulled a photo of her and her husband
and Photoshopped his face, over her husband's face.
It was just littered with photos of her.
It just got really nasty.
And his followers, I think, took it
to the next level.
I don't think there is any imaginable situation
where I would even want to sit down with him.
It doesn't matter, because he's doing
massive harm to society.
In 2016, as a strong, independent woman.
That's what I want.
That's what I'm looking for. That's what I've been looking for my whole life.
I'm gonna get a poster of Lauren Duca.
I'm gonna cut myself.
'Cause the pain is so sweet.
Feud isn't the right word
because it doesn't begin to describe he way
his harassment of her has, you know, affected her life.
It's not a fucking meme, it's a real fucking life.
And Twitter... Twitter can't keep us apart.
Nothing can keep us apart.
Account suspended.
I think it was threatening Lauren Duca
with rape, I believe.
HODGE: And that essentially led him to get kicked off Twitter.
That was exactly what got him kicked off Twitter, yes.
Which he suffers for.
He misses Twitter, terribly.
As an entertainer, somebody who loves the attention,
being muted...
is death.
♪ Martin Shkreli, tell us what's your plan
♪ Yes, Martin Shkreli tell us what's your plan
♪ Buy an album by the Wu-Tang clan♪
CALDWELL: I'm not playing Martin Shkreli.
That's the point. Like, I am playing a collection of his outward persona.
We're creating a character based on the Martin Shkreli
he put out into the media, which was his own choice.
Yeah, he has, like a little bit of a...
The receding hairline
was important and the smirk is, I mean, that's the signature.
Like, that you've got to do.
♪ Martin Shkreli
is for the American dream ♪
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
CALDWELL: The funny thing about all of this
is that the best thing you could do to make him happy,
is what we're doing right now
is sitting here like,, "Do you think he's..."
You know? And he's just laughing the whole time
that we're doing this, that I'm playing him,
and you're asking me about what I think about playing him. Like, this is insane.
This is insane. This is the weirdest thing in the world and he's gotta love that.
SMYTHE: It's just this bizarre character study that you interact with.
And you never know what exactly
you're going to get, but you also don't know
how legitimate what you're getting is.
There's no mirror that he can hold up
to what he's saying that, you know, allows him to see how it's perceived.
The message is going out, and he's not receiving an equal message
from how people take him.
This is one where people start to say "Is he a sociopath?"
Do I consider myself a sociopath?
Wow!
What a question.
I can't say I get that one often.
SMYTHE: Some people think that he's autistic.
And this is an eccentric person.
We had Martin, you know, evaluated by one of the leading experts in the field
and they concluded
that if he had been properly diagnosed as a child, would have been classified
as perhaps autistic.
I think a social awkwardness was certainly obvious.
Sounds like Pharma Bro needs some meds.
Yeah, I think that's pretty reasonable.
BRAFMAN: I think he's going to be Martin Shkreli for the rest of his life,
and you take the good and the bad with that.
LANGLEY: Some individuals don't understand the better side of human nature,
causing these people to go without their medication.
People are ready to see a villain,
and to assume that you're gonna fit all these qualities.
I don't think it's that he has no empathy,
or he doesn't think that it matters if people get hurt.
It's the fact that he thinks people coming at him,
telling him that people are getting hurt are not telling him the truth.
HODGE: Don't you think we would have heard stories by now
of somebody that was on their death bed,
had all the spots on their faces,
and were at the end of the rope and all they needed
was that one bottle from Martin, and he wouldn't give it to them.
Why are none of your patients coming out publicly and talking to Martin about it?
I don't think patients, for the most part, want to come forward,
because then they're disclosing their HIV status.
But the reality is, there still remains a stigma with HIV.
Patients that have active toxoplasmosis are usually pretty ill.
They're in a life threatening situation that needs to be treated.
HODGE: News headlines constantly say that Martin is an AIDS killer.
I feel like a lot of these articles aren't actually getting to the truth.
ABERG: I think the HIV/AIDS came into the equation
because that's who we associate the most as needing the drug.
KESSELHEIM: Toxoplasmosis is a deadly infectious disease.
If you have an intact immune system,
it's a relatively easy infection to fight off.
But if you don't, it's something that can take hold
and so Pyrimethamine doesn't treat HIV,
it treats this opportunistic infection.
This isn't some drug that, you know, you can live without.
If you have this infection, it needs to be treated.
PATRICK RICE: Looking at this amount of pills, it cost less than the table it's sitting on.
By the time the price hike went into effect,
I realized my house costs less than this.
HODGE: This is a pain schedule, more or less,
-the last six years of having this disease. -Mmm-hmm.
Yeah, just one after another, after another.
These are all appointments.
Each of these is an appointment, I was so sick.
It's given me mouth sores, stomach pain, lots of bleeding.
I had a long time where I didn't know I was sick
and I was getting sicker and sicker and you just kind of have faith
that your doctors are wise, and the system isn't working against you.
10/25 Pyrimethamine, this is the prescription for Daraprim.
Twenty-five milligrams, two daily at this point, $30 a bottle.
For me, 48 tabs lasted nearly six weeks.
At this appointment, they found out I couldn't get access to it.
I think that was when the price hike happened.
I get home and go to fill this prescription,
and they're like, "No, that's not going to happen."
I said "What do you mean?"
They said, "That's really expensive."
I said, "How much is it?"
They said, "$30,000."
I said, "$30,000 a year for one med?"
And they said, "No, no, no, $30,000 a month."
We got online, started thinking there's gotta be something.
I assumed it was going to be a little blip.
We give it a week or two and we'll have it sorted.
The longer it went, the more surreal it was.
My doctors were stumped. It was pretty crushing.
It's weird when you've realized
that the sensational headline is hitting the mark.
Price gouging pharmaceuticals,
you know, denying patients.
I saw the hate, acknowledged it.
I understood it.
The narrative became the hate instead of the patient.
I just I didn't have time for that. I was too sick.
I wish that he had had less time for malice too,
when he was putting together his ideas.
Put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has this illness.
This drug is 70 years old. You wouldn't want a 70-year-old drug.
At the end of the day, there have been much larger drug price increases
by much bigger drug companies.
We're dramatically increasing the access to Daraprim.
RICE: Having insurance doesn't mean you have access to care.
There's so many levels to actually having access to healthcare in America.
I had the gold plan.
It didn't matter.
They just denied it. They said "It's way too expensive for us to get involved."
-HODGE: The insurance company said that? -Yeah.
Because they don't want to spend 30 grand a month on me.
I don't think it was a quirk of the system
that I was able to fall through the cracks that way.
I think it's built-in.
During that time, I saw Martin Shkreli got on Reddit and did an AMA,
which is an "Ask me anything," and people just post their questions.
HODGE: I never really heard of a pharmaceutical CEO doing AMA.
It's pretty rare.
Somebody asked him, "What about patients that can't afford it?"
He's like "Oh, no, no, no. If they need it, they'll get it for life."
That was when I jumped in the conversation
because all of us are weak and strong, right?
And if we only show our strength, then we're just showing
just a half version of ourselves.
You know, I just wanted to say,
"Are you being dishonest? What's going on here?"
And he actually replied to my comment, "Why don't you reach out to me?
"We'll get it sorted out."
I emailed him, and sure enough he connects me with an account specialist.
They said they were gonna get me squared away, 10-day supplies.
They didn't bill me.
I didn't feel like the system was working 'cause I got my med.
I feel like I got really, really lucky.
And it took literally talking to the guy that's on all the news channels.
This was a receipt I got
that shows I got 20 pills, which was a 10-day supply.
So right now, I guess you would say I'm in remission.
I don't take any of this stuff now.
The conclusion of my story is fine, 'cause I'm here.
For me, the sad story is that I don't think we learned from this yet.
I don't think we've fixed it yet.
I think we have a lot of work to do still.
HODGE: So, is this where Martin Shkreli's entire court appearance is happening?
Yes. Yeah, the entire trial is on the sixth floor.
Yeah.
HODGE: It sucks that I can't bring a camera into the courthouse.
Yeah, it would be very difficult with Brafman's theatrics and Martin's winking.
It's hard to make that up, to make that loss up.
But that's why sketch artists still have jobs. [CHUCKLES]
TIRRELL: Shkreli was charged with eight counts of securities fraud,
conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
WOMAN: So, this is at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
It covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island.
Each district has their own federal prosecutors.
Jacquelyn Kasulis, Alix Smith, and Karthik Srinivasan.
They tend to be graduates of good law schools
who are pretty aggressive.
And then the FBI helped investigate.
They're sitting at the table with the prosecutors.
He said, Eastern District prosecutors were junior varsity.
He didn't think much of them.
It's possible that he thought he could outwit them.
Prosecutor style, especially from that office, is very straightforward.
And Brafman is, like, pretty dramatic.
Brafman is fun to watch in the courtroom.
It's a good contrast.
It's just good courtroom...
Courtroom theatrics.
Judge is Kiyo Matsumoto.
She had been a federal prosecutor, longtime federal judge in that courthouse.
HODGE: Shkreli's harassment,
do you think this being a woman judge might hurt him?
No, I have never seen the judge...
She seemed very fair.
And then, of course, jury selection, was just so much fun.
Like, an unexpected amount of fun.
Jury selection begins in New York.
That notoriety from the infamous price hike has left a stain
that's now following him even into trial.
Jury selection took a lot longer than we expected.
Entering its third day today without seating a single juror...
I covered Bill Cosby's jury selection and it didn't take anywhere near as long.
They called in a couple hundred jurors.
TIRRELL: They went through this giant panel of people.
Just weeded out everyone
that they thought could poison the pool.
REPORTER: Nearly 200 potential jurors have already been dismissed.
MAN: Obviously, there's a bias out there.
They're going to find a jury. It just may take a while.
So Judge Matsumoto is trying to determine
whether jurors are biased or whether they can't serve.
They had to be able to be impartial even if they had heard of him.
STEPHEN COLBERT: But there's a big problem.
Martin Shkreli can't find jurors who don't already hate him.
WOMAN: She just starts going through one by one.
"Does anybody have opinions about the defendant that I should know about?"
HODGE: And were there any opinions about Martin Shkreli?
There were.
ANNOUNCER: And now,
some of the actual responses from potential jurors excused
from the Martin Shkreli Trial.
So, people did know him, clearly, and had really strong opinions on him.
Where are you going to find a jury who doesn't think he's guilty?
I can't even find most family members who don't find him guilty.
I think everyone, regardless of who they are, deserves a fair trial.
And so I do hope that they find jurors who are not biased,
you know, immediately biased against him.
And I hope justice is served.
REPORTER: You know, his lawyer has already called for mistrials.
The judge said, "No, no."
A lot of people just associated him with high-priced drugs.
A couple people mistakenly thought he raised the price of the EpiPen,
which is a totally different company.
He really was just, you know, the face of unaffordable drugs.
And they were so angry about that, even though they were told
by the judge repeatedly that this has nothing to do
with drug pricing, they just couldn't.
Or they also just wanted to get out of jury duty, maybe, you know. [CHUCKLES]
Trial is over tomorrow.
Which is...
Anything that we do goes down in history
'cause it's being recorded.
Even this interview is going down in history.
As soon as I win, I'm gonna sue everybody.
Don't worry about that. [CHUCKLES]
Don't worry about that.
KILLAH: Shit comes to you and then it passes by. Shit comes everyday.
This time I'm gonna sue every fucking person.
You really can't not check what's in the hearts of others around you.
Where the energy at?
Bring that villain shit out now.
Super villain.
You have to be careful in this world right now,
growing up in this era like this.
You got cameras on you,
but now the social media, a lot of internet gangsters.
These internet guys can't hang with me. Crazy.
What are you doing, bruv?
That's not you.
It's not you.
You're talking too much.
The most suckerest motherfucker could say what he want to say
and get heard and get a million views.
So it's a whole new other world, man.
And if I'm acquitted, I get to fuck Lauren Duca.
BILLY: Nobody loses when Martin loses.
And there was really nobody connected to Martin to take the loss but Martin.
I don't think he ever really thought of
the "damage" he did,
and maybe the damage he did was making a mockery of the justice system.
It's the story of...
everything, basically.
He was the asshole.
So even if you do kind of feel for him,
even with the fraud, whatever, the fraud,
if you don't have a fraud by the time you're 35, you're not trying.
BRAFMAN: Real trials are more interesting than anything you could script.
It unfolds before you without any direction,
without any lighting or makeup, and things aren't different
because we use tricks or magic.
I think if the rules are followed, rules are applied fairly,
then I'm okay, regardless of the verdict.
They dislike Martin, obviously,
and Martin, unfortunately gave them more reason to dislike him.
He personalized the animus, and it was not necessary.
It seems everybody is satisfied now
because they saw the rise and fall of the bad man.
He's just a fucking bullshit boogie man.
He's not the real problem.
He's the one that the kids were scared of.
Now that he's gone, they feel safe again.
They're not.
We have not taken enough steps yet
to prevent future Martin Shkrelis from using similar tactics in other drugs.
COHEN: If the law allows someone to do this legally,
Martin Shkrelis will show up and do it,
and ask ourselves whether law change is necessary or not.
It's again this question of, "Is health a privilege or a right?"
By blaming just an individual like Martin Shkreli,
we miss the bigger picture.
ABERG: As much as we all love to hate him,
others are doing it.
So, he's not alone.
The bottom line is, we have to assure that everybody has access to care.
I'm on three.
-See you around. -See you around. Yeah.
SHKRELI: Good luck to you. See you in the building, man.
HODGE: There are a lot of super villains who could have used a friend along the way.
As traditionally written, they don't tend to be
that motivated by seeking friendship.
In real life, though, people are more complicated than that.
What?
Who could that be?
Real nice.
HODGE: Can I touch the birdie?
I gotta touch the birdie guy.
SHKRELI: That's really nice of you.
Let me get your number so I can share photos or something.
HODGE: See you around. Thanks for everything.
And an awful lot of individuals would be much better off
and go a completely different direction
if they've gotten friendship at particular times.
My neighbor in the building
came by with a six pack.
Very nice of him.
Yeah. It's nice to have friends in your building, you know?
Ultimately is he going to reach a point where he decides
"My life needs to be better than this."
"I want more out of relationships than what's going on."
Well...
HODGE: After more than a month at the Brooklyn courthouse,
and five days of jury deliberations, the Shkreli trial has come to an end.
REPORTER 1: We now have some breaking news on Martin Shkreli...
REPORTER 2: It's been a quiet day up until right now
when the jury they brought a note to the judge
saying they have reached a verdict.
REPORTER 3: Next, the verdict is in for former drug company CEO Martin Shkreli.
HODGE: Well, it's moving day.
I knew I needed to move out of this place, eventually.
Wasn't gonna stay here forever.
Yeah, it's been an interesting year.
You could say that.
I wanted to get as close as I could to Martin Shkreli.
Tell the real story at least a whole rounded story.
Say it was experience in humanity, or maybe lack of humanity.
It seems pretty creepy, actually, when you're packing up.
Martin let me into his apartment,
and I forgot to ask him, if I can hear the Wu-Tang album.
Is the album even good?
It doesn't matter if it's a great album, the album might not even exist.
Like, imagine that album didn't exist.
Imagine there's no music on there.
Imagine, it's just a story to see
what people would do if music was taken away from them.
I've polished the Wu-Tang album. I'm gonna sell it.
Putting it on eBay right now. Fuck Wu-Tang.
MAN: People are gonna want to know what happens to that Wu-Tang album.
That's a real question now.
See, the whole thing about that album is the mystery.
The mystique.
The minute everybody hears it, the story is dead.
I don't think I'm going to prison. I actually wouldn't mind.
It seems fun. But I don't think I'm going.
We'll see, I guess.
Lowkey.
There's only 200 people here watching.
When the jury comes back with a not guilty verdict,
that's going to be my moment to just start dancing.
This was a witch hunt of epic proportions,
and maybe they found one or two broomsticks.
But at the end of the day, we've been acquitted
of the most important charges in this case.
I'm delighted to report that.
REPORTER: Tonight, Shkreli and his legal team are celebrating the verdict.
He is guilty on three counts.
You know, if the government,
that's all they could come up with after stunning tens of millions of dollars
of dollars of taxpayer money to get the big, bad Martin Shkreli,
then God bless them.
I don't think I'm going to jail.
Maybe a few weeks if that...
I'm sorry your prison gay rape fantasies won't come true.
There's always time for more crimes, I guess.
You never know.
ANA KASPARIAN: Notorious Pharma Bro is now in jail.
REPORTER 1: When Martin Shkreli arrived in Brooklyn federal court yesterday,
it was expected that he was going to be walking back out again.
But that is not what happened.
He was remanded into custody and ordered immediately to prison
to await that sentencing.
REPORTER 2: He was hauled before the court after offering $5,000
for a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair.
The judge said that could be interpreted as a physical threat.
His defense attorney arguing the offer was meant as political satire.
This is not the normal narrative of a white collar crime case.
He's in general population.
He's with murderers and gang members, the whole thing.
Picture that for a second.
I'll bet you he's not in there screaming anything
about Wu-Tang in there like that.
Probably in there shivering under his fucking covers,
not even coming out of his fucking bunk.
He probably paying anybody in there just to use a fucking phone.
I don't think we have the technology to clone Hillary.
And if we did, I don't think Martin would actually do it.
I guess the idea of cloning Hillary is enough to get you locked up these days.
ABERG: Who would say something like that?
That really, to me, is criminal.
That's not funny.
HAYDEN: He's a danger to society?
Are you kidding me?
I think I'm more of a danger to society than he is.
You know? [LAUGHS]
SMYTHE: I've had kind of a unique relationship with him.
It hasn't been like he is with the other journalists. He trusts me.
He takes what I say seriously.
He's open with me in a way that he is not with most people.
REPORTER: Well respected journalists covering the case
of Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli, puts her life on the line for love.
I visited Martin in prison,
and I just simply told him that I loved him.
And what was his reaction?
He said that he loved me, too.
Did he say the words to you,
"I want to have children with you?"
Yes.
I would love Martin to get out.
I would love him to start working on something productive that helps the world.
And I'd like to play some sort of role in helping him get there.
That's my dream.
This is maybe probably telling of his weirdness,
but I'm the only woman he's ever introduced to his parents.
REPORTER: The world needs Pharma Bros now more than ever.
Or at least that's his reasoning for requesting a temporary three month
release from prison so that he can develop a cure for Coronavirus.
It'd just be really funny if the person
who ends up saving the world from this current pandemic
is Martin fucking Shkreli.
HODGE: The jury is going to decide on what's going to happen to Martin.
I hope whatever happens to him, he's at peace with that.
I'm disappointed.
This is a good judge.
She made her decision, and we all have to live with it.