Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Martin Shkreli, Live Streaming Himself In Pajama Bottoms Within the Past Week
Eric Holder, who stepped down this year as the U.S. Attorney General after six years in office, rejoined the law firm he had left to accept the top slot at the Justice Department. That firm is Covington & Burling, which operates a revolving door between the Justice Department and its own front door. In addition to Holder, Lanny Breuer, who headed up the Justice Department’s criminal division under Holder, also returned to Covington & Burling after a devastating report by ABC’s Frontline on how his division had failed to seriously investigate crimes on Wall Street. Making the round trip between the Justice Department and Covington & Burling in 2010 was Steven Fagell, former deputy chief of staff at the criminal division, and Jim Garland, former deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Eric Holder. Dan Suleiman, former deputy chief of staff to Breuer at the Justice Department, rejoined the law firm in 2013, the same year as Breuer.
While Holder was in the position as the top law enforcement officer in the land, the firm he would rejoin, Covington & Burling, was serving as “counsel to the underwriters” of a stock offering by Retrophin, then headed by CEO Martin Shkreli, the man the Justice Department is now accusing of looting Retrophin, a pharmaceutical startup, in a brazen Ponzi scheme type of operation.
Covington and Burling lawyers, Donald J. Murray and Eric W. Blanchard, are listed on the Registration statement filed by Retrophin on December 18, 2013. The law firm’s web site lists Murray as the Chair of the firm’s Securities and Capital Markets Practice Group and Blanchard as the Vice Chair. The law firm’s web site also lists an Associate, Gustavo Akkerman, as representing the “underwriters in the initial public offering of Retrophin, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on treatment of catastrophic diseases.”
Adding to the intrigue, Evan Greebel, a high-profile lawyer who had previously worked at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP before joining Kaye Scholer this summer as a partner, has also been charged by the Justice Department in the fraud. The name of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP appears in the 2013 Retrophin registration of securities alongside Covington & Burling with this notation: “The validity of our common stock offered hereby will be passed upon by Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, New York, New York.”
The SEC has also brought related charges against Shkreli and Greebel. Retrophin is suing Shkreli in Federal Court in Manhattan after firing him last year. In the Federal suit, Retrophin calls Shkreli the “paradigm of a faithless servant,” providing the following detail: “Starting sometime in early 2012, and continuing until he left the Company, Shkreli used his control over Retrophin to enrich himself, and to pay off claims of MSMB investors [hedge funds operated by Shkreli] (who he had defrauded).” (Read the full text of the Retrophin lawsuit against Shkreli here.)
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