Judge revokes Martin Shkreli's $5M bond

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Wednesday revoked the $5 million bond of Martin Shkreli after the former pharmaceutical executive posted a bounty for Hillary Clinton's hair in what he described as a joke.

U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, N.Y., said Shkreli posed a danger to the community after he offered $5,000 on Facebook for a strand of the former secretary of state's hair. Prosecutors also said comments about journalist Lauren Duca were threatening.

His remarks sparked the interest of the Secret Service.

Shkreli and his lawyers, though, said his comments were a joke and that he doesn't deserve to be jailed.

"I wanted to personally apologize to this court and my lawyers for the aggravation that my recent postings have caused," Shkreli said in a letter Tuesday. "I understand now that some may have read my comments about Mrs. Clinton as threatening, when that was never my intention when making those comments."

"I used poor judgment but never intended to cause alarm or promote any act of violence whatsoever," he added.

A jury convicted Shkreli in early August on three counts related to securities fraud for a Ponzi scheme he ran between 2009 and 2014 in which he bilked investors out of a total of $11 million.

Prosecutors said Shkreli illegally took stock from his biotechnology firm, Retrophin Inc., and used it to pay off debts from a failed hedge fund -- which is illegal. The Retrophin board of directors later sued Shkreli and he was ousted from the company for which he served as CEO.

His sentencing hearing for the conviction has yet to be scheduled.