The weekend winter storm forced House investigators Monday to push back their showdown with Martin Shkreli, the price-hiking drug company executive who is resisting their plans to have him appear before Congress for what he says is his own public embarrassment.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is now slated to hear from Mr. Shkreli on Feb. 4, pushing back what had been a Tuesday hearing where the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals was expected to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and decline to answer questions about why he raised the price of a decades-old drug more than fiftyfold.
Aides for Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, said the committee still expects Mr. Shkreli to appear, even though he plans to plead the Fifth, and a federal judge in New York ruled Monday that Mr. Shkreli is permitted to travel to Capitol Hill for the testimony.
Mr. Shkreli faces charges on an unrelated indictment for securities fraud in New York, and federal and state agencies are investigating whether Turing violated antitrust laws.
Defense attorneys said the terms of his $5 million bail prohibited him from leaving New York, but federal prosecutors insisted that they did not mind if he went to Washington.
More broadly, Mr. Shkreli’s attorneys have argued that forcing him to invoke his constitutional rights in person would do little more than embarrass him and hurt his chances of getting a fair trial on the charges, given widespread press coverage of the brash 32-year-old, who has been dubbed a “pharma bro.”
Even as he declined to talk under oath, Mr. Shkreli used his official Twitter account last week to criticize Mr. Chaffetz and ranking Democrat Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat.
“While he has created most of the publicity that surrounds him, he as an individual has a First Amendment right to do so,” his attorneys told Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Cummings over the weekend. “By contrast, the government — whether it is the legislative branch or the prosecutors in the executive branch — should not poison the atmosphere against him for no legitimate purpose.”
Mr. Shkreli was charged in December with lying to hedge fund investors and misusing funds from Retrophin, a publicly traded company he founded in 2011, to cover his tracks in a Ponzi-like scheme.
He pleaded not guilty and vowed to beat the charges.
But what really landed him in the spotlight was Turing Pharmaceuticals’ decision in September to hike the price of an anti-parasitic drug, Daraphrim, from $13.50 per pill to $750.
The backlash was severe. Consumer advocates and members of Congress accused Mr. Shkreli of immoral gouging.
The backlash forced Turing to discount the drug for hospitals and take steps to make it affordable for patients, though Mr. Shkreli’s defenders said he had made a business decision that is common in the pharmaceutical world. Others said casting him as a leading villain only distracted from larger issues in the industry.
Mr. Shkreli resigned as Turing CEO one day after he was arrested. Now, he says he won’t testify before the House oversight panel unless he is granted some form of immunity.
Mr. Chaffetz said Mr. Shkreli would have to invoke his Fifth Amendment right in person or risk contempt charges.
Mr. Shkreli’s attorneys say the House can get the information it needs from Nancy Retzlaff, a current Turing executive scheduled to testify alongside Mr. Shkreli, Howard B. Schiller, interim CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, and two other witnesses.
Though the criminal case against Mr. Shkreli’s isn’t related to drug prices, his attorneys say, the grand jury is still digging, and the Federal Trade Commission and New York state attorney general are investigating whether Turing committed civil violations.
Witnesses are allowed to plead the Fifth if there is a chance that testimony could provide a link in the chain of evidence that results in a criminal prosecution, they said.
“There are real and substantial risks of self-incrimination if Mr. Shkreli was to speak about Daraprim or drug pricing before the Committee,” the attorneys wrote.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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