NEW YORK-- Beleaguered pharmaceutical executive turned media sensation Martin Shkreli has been instructed by his new high-powered lawyer, Ben Brafman, to stop talking.
"He is not making any more statements. Zero," Brafman said in an email to USA TODAY about his new client, who has been called the most hated man in America, and who just this week mouthed off to rapper Ghostface Killah and Congress.
The crackdown comes as Shkreli heads to Washington for a Congressional committee hearing Thursday about skyrocketing drug prices at Turing Pharmaceuticals, a company the 32-year-old New Yorker ran before he was arrested in December on fraud charges.
On December 17th, as controversy was brewing over Turing's 5,000% price increase of a drug used to treat HIV patients, Shkreli was arrested for allegedly defrauding former investors of a hedge fund. He has denied the charges, which are separate from concerns over drug pricing.
Brafman, who is known for representing bold-faced names like Michael Jackson and former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, appeared in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday as Shkreli's attorney on the fraud charges, which he said he will beat.
"It is clear that Mr. Shkreli never intended to violate the law, nor did he ever defraud anyone," Brafman said in a statement.
At Wednesday's hearing, the government warned that the E-Trade account Shkreli used to secure his $5 million bail bond had fallen in value to $4 million from $45 million, CNBC reported. The decline is due to the plummeting value of one of Shkreli's other drug companies, KaloBios, which terminated Shkreli as CEO after he was arrested — and then filed for bankruptcy.
Despite the brokerage account decline, the judge granted both parties additional time to complete and review discovery and set the next status hearing for May 3rd, according to court records.
Outside the courthouse, Brafman told reporters that Shkreli's silence was one of the conditions of his representation, according to CNBC.
But putting a lid on Shkreli has proven tough in the past, said Allan Ripp, who was Turing's outside press contact until a few months ago.
"He doesn't want to be censored. He is incorrigible," said Ripp. "Shkreli is a millennial for whom social media is like oxygen," Ripp said.
Indeed, before the Brafman's crackdown, Shekreli was freely broadcasting his thoughts on everything from the criminal case to the investigation into drug prices to his beef with rapper Ghostface Killah, who blasted him on drug pricing.
"If he were here right now, I'd smack him right in the face!" Shkreli told The Breakfast Club radio show of the Wu-Tang Clan member, according to an interview posted online Wednesday. "You don't say sh** about me and not expect back some repercussions. And I'm not about to change who I am — ever."
Shkreli, who famously dropped $2 million to buy the sole existing Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon A Time," also talked about Brafman.
"I just picked up a lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, who’s represented Diddy, Jay(Z), 50 (Cent), also represented some non-rappers. He’s probably the best lawyer in the world. I’m confident we’ll beat the charges," he said.
The Breakfast Club interview did not occur on Wednesday, Brafman said.
Earlier this week, Shkreli told Fox Business News that it was "ridiculous" and "unethical" for Congress to force him to appear Thursday to plead the Fifth Amendment, and that it was just "a ploy to embarrass him."
