April 22, 2020 | 3: 37pm | Updated April 22, 2020 | 4: 26pm
Martin Shkreli put a ring on it.
The 37-year-old disgraced Pharma Bro has a fiancée, his attorneys said Wednesday in a compassionate release request to spring Shkreli from a minimum-security prison in Pennsylvania.
Shkreli is asking to spend the remainder of his seven-year sentence with his bride-to-be — whose name is redacted in court papers — at her Manhattan apartment so that he can, they say, work on a coronavirus cure.
Shkreli’s attorneys claim that he has been conducting “significant research” into developing molecules that inhibit a coronavirus protein — and that he should be let free to work on the treatment and to avoid catching the deadly bug himself.
“Mr. Shkreli has spent countless hours while incarcerated researching disease treatments and possible cures for COVID-19. His current project has been well received,” the request to Brooklyn federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto states.
“One company is prepared to begin working on clinical trials of Mr. Shkreli’s work within weeks,” the attorneys write. The name of the company is redacted in court papers.
The warden at FCI Allenwood, where Shkreli is being held, denied Shkreli’s request for compassionate release earlier this month.
He is scheduled to be released by September 2023.
Shkreli gained notoriety in 2015 by jacking up the price of Daraprim, an antifungal drug that is vital for HIV-positive patients, by 5,000 percent.
In 2017, he was convicted of defrauding investors in two of his hedge funds.
The Daraprim price hike was unrelated to the criminal case — though it made him the target of public scorn and a lawsuit that New York Attorney General Letitia James and the Federal Trade Commission filed in January seeking a lifetime ban on Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry.
Shkreli’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn declined to comment on Shkreli’s request.