Federal regulators and attorneys general from seven states asked a New York judge to hold Martin Shkreli in contempt, saying he has flouted a lifetime ban from the drug industry.
The Federal Trade Commission and bipartisan attorneys general from New York, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina, and Virginia filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They allege Shkreli has publicly traded pharmaceutical stocks and broadcast his views on biotech firms since leaving prison in May 2022.
The Daily Caller reported the Tuesday filing, which asks the court to enforce a permanent injunction that barred Shkreli from any role in the pharmaceutical industry after a full trial. Five of the state attorneys general are Democrats and two are Republicans.
Shkreli did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The contempt push rests on a 2022 ruling by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote. After a full trial, Cote issued a 135-page opinion finding that Shkreli, while CEO of the now-defunct company Vyera, violated federal and state laws with anticompetitive conduct.
The court tied that conduct to Daraprim, a drug whose list price Vyera raised from $17.50 to $750 per tablet. The FTC and New York Attorney General Letitia James first brought charges over that scheme in 2020.
Judge Cote described why the lifetime ban was warranted.
"Shkreli’s egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running, and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct warrants imposition of an injunction of this scope."
She also detailed how Shkreli’s control of Daraprim distribution shut out competition.
"Through his tight control of the distribution of Daraprim, Shkreli prevented generic drug companies from getting access to the quantity of Daraprim they needed to conduct testing demanded by the Food and Drug Administration."
FTC Bureau of Competition director Daniel Guarnera pointed back to that record in the agency’s statement on the new motion.
"After a full trial, the court found that Martin Shkreli’s conduct drove up prescription drug costs for American patients and blocked the entry of lower-cost generics."
Guarnera added that court judgments are not optional.
"When judgment is entered by a court, whether it’s a settlement or an order following a trial, defendants must fulfill their obligations. Today’s action should serve as notice that the FTC will not hesitate to enforce violations of court orders."
The FTC says the violations began after Shkreli’s May 2022 release from prison. According to the agency, he has publicly traded pharmaceutical industry stocks and broadcast opinions about the business and management of many drug companies.
The motion claims he has run afoul of the permanent injunction by livestreaming and posting on social media about trading and investing in biotech. One clip cited from a July 2025 YouTube livestream captured Shkreli’s own words on the subject.
"It doesn’t matter what trades I make because I can always find a couple of biotech stocks to smoke."
New York Attorney General Letitia James framed the contempt request in blunt terms. “A court-ordered lifetime ban isn’t a suggestion,” she said. James argued that Shkreli has been livestreaming pharmaceutical company trades “for the world to see, in violation of the law,” and said his alleged market manipulation and monopolistic tactics put investors and the public at risk.
James said the coalition is going back to court “to put a stop to his latest illegal behavior.”
An FTC-linked account, Mark Meador (@MeadorFTC), posted about the action on X the same day the motion was publicized.
Judge Cote’s 2022 order called the lifetime ban “a serious remedy and must be done with care.” The court still imposed it after finding Shkreli’s prior conduct justified an injunction of that scope. The ban reached any role in the drug industry, not a temporary timeout.
That history is why the current filing matters. The FTC and the seven states are not asking the court to invent a new penalty from scratch. They are asking the same federal court that already tried the case to enforce the order it already entered.
No hearing date or ruling on the contempt motion was reported with the Tuesday filing. The motion remains a request. The court has not yet decided whether Shkreli’s post-release trading and commentary crossed the line the 2022 injunction drew.
What is not in dispute is the earlier judgment. A federal judge found, after trial, that Shkreli’s control of Daraprim distribution helped drive up costs and blocked cheaper generic competition. Patients paid the price for that conduct. The lifetime ban was the court’s answer.
Court orders exist so that result is not a paper victory. If the government can prove Shkreli treated the ban as optional theater, contempt is the tool built for that problem. Law-and-order accountability does not end when a high-profile defendant walks out of prison and turns on a livestream.
