UNITED STATES MARSHALS SERVICE/Reuters
- "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli must surrender his Wu-Tang Clan album copies by Friday, a judge has ordered.
- The order is a victory for an NFT collective that bought the original "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin."
- The collective sued Shkreli after saying he boasted of sending copies to "chicks" and receiving sexual favors.
A federal judge in Brooklyn has ordered "Pharma bro" Martin Shkreli to surrender all copies of his supposedly one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album by noon on Friday.
The preliminary order is a victory for PleasrDAO, the NFT collective that purchased the album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" for $4.75 million in 2021.
The collective sued Shkreli in June after alleging that he repeatedly boasted of sending copies of the CD to various women in violation of a purchasing agreement, which banned its reproduction. The new preliminary order by Judge Pamela K. Chen, first reported in artnet, is the latest development in that lawsuit.
Shkreli had recently boasted online that he "burned the album and sent it to like, 50 different chicks," the lawsuit said. "Do you know how many blowjobs that album got me?" the lawsuit said he bragged.
The judge is requiring Shkreli to turn over any copies in his possession to his lawyers, and to swear an affidavit attesting that he has done so, PleasrDAO attorney Steven Cooper told Business Insider on Monday.
"Then, by September, he has to provide a full accounting of all the copies he's made, the money he's made to date from those copies, and who he has distributed them to, along with their names and addresses," the lawyer added.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Whether any copies actually exist is another matter. No copies have surfaced, despite Shkreli's boasts, Cooper said.
"But he's said it a number of times," the lawyer said. "We think there's a strong possibility that there are copies of it, and he did not deny that he made copies in his opposition papers" to the lawsuit, he said.
Shkreli even once livestreamed what he bragged was a portion of the album while boasting, "Of course I made MP3 copies; they're like hidden in safes all around the world," the lawsuit said.
"I'm not stupid. I don't buy something for two million dollars just so I can keep one copy," he added, according to the lawsuit.
Shkreli became rich — and notorious — after price-gouging the life-saving drug Darprim in 2015. He bought the only copy of "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" directly from Wu-Tang Clan that same year for $2 million.
The album had been seized and sold to PleasrDAO by the US government for $4.75 million in 2021 after Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud.
An attorney representing Shkreli in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.