Martin Shkreli’s reputation for lashing out at journalists, critics and (former) presidential candidates is once again coming back to haunt him.
The former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO – who is currently serving a seven-year sentence at a minimum security “Club Fed” in New Jersey – is being sued by a former executive at Turing who is arguing that he repeatedly threatened her with firing, while also making false statements about her and sullying her good name, according to the Daily News.
“He undertook a campaign of harassment and character assassination against (Costopoulos), both internally via email, as well as publicly on social media platforms such as Facebook,” the lawsuit says.
Costopoulos argued that Shkreli he continued to exert his influence at Turing in his role as the company’s majority shareholder even after he was fired as CEO – despite being indicted on securities and wire fraud charges.
Ultimately, Costopoulos was fired in 2017, she says, because Shkreli was angry that he could no longer control the company’s management team. Costopoulos says she was singled out when executives at the company refused Shkreli’s demand to dial into company meetings. They also refused to make him a paid consultant of the firm.
In the lawsuit, Costopoulos compared Shkreli’s campaign of revenge with how he offered $5,000 to any fan who could grab one of Hillary Clinton’s hairs – a “threat” that prosecutors used to successfully revoke Shkreli’s bail.
“If an agency as powerful as the Secret Service voiced concern about Mr. Shkreli’s threat directed at Secretary Clinton, imagine the impact and distress that continuous threatening emails and Facebook posts had on Plaintiff, who did not have the benefit of any protection, let alone that of the United States Secret Service,” the lawsuit says.
Costopoulos says the only reason she was fired was because Turing’s board at the time was stacked with Shkreli loyalists.
To be sure, it’s unclear what, exactly, Costopoulos is seeking from this lawsuit. It’s widely believed that Shkreli has been effectively bankrupted by his legal troubles and several poor investment decisions that he made in the aftermath of the drug price-hiking scandal that first brought him to national attention.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2FPivAf Tyler Durden