If you’ve somehow managed to avoid knowledge of Martin Shkreli – well, lucky you, to be honest. He first hit the headlines in 2015 as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he used his powers for evil by hiking the price of HIV drug Daraprim by FIVE THOUSAND PER CENT. Having not learned the lesson that doing morally indefensible things makes you universally reviled, he was later responsible for increasing the price of EpiPens – emergency allergy medication – by 400%. A truly stand-up guy.
Fast forward to 2017, and Shkreli is awaiting sentencing – this time because he’s been convicted of fraud. But getting there wasn’t an easy journey – namely because he’s so widely hated that prosecutors found it almost impossible to find jurors to fairly judge him. Overall, more than 200 jurors were excused from the trial.
And now American magazine Harper’s has published transcripts of the jury selection and they are truly DELICIOUS.
Other jurors had pretty legit reasons for not being impartial. Juror number 18 said that “both of my parents are on prescriptions that have gone up over the past few months, so much that they can’t afford their drugs. I have several friends who have HIV or AIDS who, again, can’t afford the prescription drugs that they were able to afford” and was deemed inappropriate for the jury. Similarly, juror 25 has “kids who use those drugs” and juror number 40 felt “immediately biased” for the same reasons.
Others felt similarly strongly for different reasons.
But the very best reason?
Nobody disrespects the Wu Tang, Shkreli. No-one.
(Image: Rex)
