A federal judge has put a temporary ban on “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli from streaming or disseminating copies of a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that he purchased for $2 million in 2015. The ban, reported by CNBC , came just a day after PleasrDAO, the company that bought the album from Shkreli for $4.75 million, filed a civil suit against him in U.
S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York for allegedly holding on to copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” The suit claimed that Shkreli had played the album on the internet as recently as Sunday and that his conduct violated forfeiture.
Judge Pamela Chen made the ruling on Tuesday night, asserting that PleasrDAO “is likely to succeed on the merits” of the suit “or raise significantly serious questions going to the merits of the Forefeiture Order, violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act [and] misappropriation of trade secrets.” Shkreli became a critical lightning rod after drastically increasing the price of an antiparasitic drug by 4,000 percent in 2015. That same year, he purchased “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which set a Guinness World Record as the most expensive musical work in history.
Shkreli tried to sell the album on eBay in 2017 and sold it for $1 million, but was incarcerated for criminal fraud before the sale could be completed. The following year, the government seized $7.36 million in assets from Shkreli, including the Wu-Tang album, and in 2021 auctioned off the album to .
