Martin Shkreli cat adoption rejected because of TikTok, lies
“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli may have received some compensation when he was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud in 2018. Or when he was ordered to pay $64.6 million in January 2022 for increasing the price of Daraprim, an antiparasitic drug commonly prescribed to immunocompromised patients. Or when he was forced to give up the world’s rarest Wu Tang Clan album, which he reportedly acquired for $2 million, along with exclusive rights to hear the popular ’90s hip-hop group’s latest offering .
But Shkreli got three years out of prison in early 2022, failed to pay his $64.6 million, according to court records, and started another pharmaceutical company despite a court-ordered lifetime ban from the industry. Now he may have gotten a small dose of karma: he’s having trouble adopting a cat, according to documents obtained by wealth from an adoption agency based in Queens, New York.
In mid-January, Shkreli submitted an application to AdvoCat Rescue, a Forest Hills animal shelter (he moved to the county in 2022 after the terms of his parole ruled that he couldn’t live in Manhattan). He was attempting to adopt Patti, a 2-year-old black and gray tabby cat who was found on the streets of Brooklyn. “In 2015, I adopted an adult female cat (‘Sweetie’) from a friend who was no longer able to take care of her,” the former pharmaceutical executive wrote in his application wealth checked. “I loved her.”
After being sentenced to jail “for non-violent financial crimes,” he said he gave Sweetie to his parents and they took care of the cat for years while he was in prison and eventually couldn’t bear to part with her separate. Shkreli wanted a new cat.
‘lol it’s a cat’
Jana Rosenthal, the owner of AdvoCat Rescue, says she thought she recognized the name on the application. She did a little Googling to confirm that it was indeed the same Shkreli who had increased the price of Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 in 2015, sparking a national debate about rising drug prices. “His application was actually good in terms of answers on paper,” she said wealth.
(Daraprim is sometimes used off-label to treat toxoplasmosis in cats, said Bruce Kornreich, director of the Cornell Feline Health Center wealthalthough he added that it’s not necessarily the “drug of choice” for treating the parasitic infection and is often used in combination with other drugs.)
In the midst of her Google search, Rosenthal found evidence she judged disqualifying the former pharma exec: Before he moved to Queens, Shkreli, who cited his profession as “investor” on his adoption filing, had said on TikTok that he was planning to throw “wild parties” in his new apartment. And Rosenthal saw articles about Shkreli actually having a cat before he was incarcerated. But he repeatedly said the cat’s name was Trashy, not Sweetie.
“As much as a person interviews the cat they want to adopt, we need to be comfortable with the adopter,” Rosenthal wrote in response to Shkreli after raising her concerns.
He replied less than 15 minutes later, “Lol it’s a cat.”
said Shkreli wealth that Rosenthal’s conclusions were unfair. He said his TikTok video was a joke and claimed his assistant changed his former cat’s name “without his knowledge” while filling out his application for AdvoCat.
Rosenthal, who said her shelter spent months nursing a cat with four broken legs back to health, was put off. “We appreciate the cats we save,” she replied to Shkreli’s terse email.
For his part, Shkreli couldn’t help but crack a joke in response. “I bought some Cas9 tools for gene editing proteins,” he wrote, later adding, “Prior to my adoption of Patti, I would need your organization to sign a gene editing denial.” [sic] indemnifies me for any mutations (double strand breaks or otherwise) that may occur during the process.
“My past keeps haunting me”
“I don’t think he has nefarious motives,” Rosenthal said of Shkreli, who mentioned that she often turns down potential cat owners. “I think he just wants to adopt the cat.”
said Shkreli wealth He was “devastated” by Rosenthal’s rejection of his application and said he thinks she has “some kind of hiring problem.” He added, “It’s something where my past keeps haunting me.”
Shkreli, who believes he won’t have any trouble finding another cat to adopt, also finds himself in legal trouble again. In July 2022, he announced the creation of Druglike, which will facilitate drug discovery using a decentralized computing network powered by the cryptocurrency Martin Shkreli Inu. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap of the token is nearly $1.5 million at press time.
In late January, the Federal Trade Commission asked a judge to sentence Shkreli for failing to provide the agency with information needed to assess whether his creation of Druglike violated a lifetime pharmaceutical industry ban.
In a court filing, Shkreli insisted he was not violating his ban. And he didn’t think he’d be going back to jail anytime soon, according to his application to AdvoCat: “There’s no reason to think I’ll have to give up my next pet.”
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