"Pharma bro" scammer Martin Shkreli has been sent to a federal prison in New Jersey to serve the remainder of his seven-year sentence after being denied his request for a minimum-security federal camp.
Shkreli, who had been in a Brooklyn federal jail since September, was shipped Tuesday to the low-security Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The prison is located on the U.S. military base at Fort Dix, about 80 miles from New York City, where Shkreli lived, and 30 miles from Philadelphia. It houses 3,945 inmates.
Shkreli, 35, in March had asked to be sent to the minimum-security camp adjacent to another federal prison in Pennsylvania, FCI Canaan.
His sentencing judge endorsed that request. But the Bureau of Prisons has the last word in determining where to place its inmates.
Shkreli's lawyer Benjamin Brafman declined to comment Wednesday.
Brafman previously said that Judge Kiyo Matsumoto's ruling last September that Shkreli was a public danger would prevent him from being sent to a minimum-security camp because of BOP guidelines.
Camps are considered safer for inmates and are relatively more pleasant places to do one's sentence than facilities that have higher security designations.
Matsumoto had said Shkreli was a danger as she revoked his bail for, among other things, his bizarre offer to Facebook followers of $5,000 for each strand of hair they managed to pull off the head of Hillary Clinton, who at the time was in the midst of a book tour.
Shkreli until then had been free on $5 million bail despite being convicted in August of defrauding a group of hedge-fund investors and of manipulating the stock of a drug company he founded, Retrophin.
Fort Dix's past inmates have included Buddy Cianci, the corrupt mayor of Providence, Rhode Island; high-ranking Patriarca crime family boss Matthew Gugliemetti Jr., and George Jung, the former cocaine kingpin portrayed by actor Johnny Depp in the film "Blow."
Fort Dix also has housed Martin Frankel, the insurance swindler whose crimes led to $200 million in losses. Frankel was featured on CNBC's crime show "American Greed," as was Shkreli, recently.
Matsumoto last month sentenced Shkreli to seven years in prison. She also ordered that he forfeit almost $7.4 million to the federal government, and pay a $75,000 fine.
Last week, Matsumoto ordered Shkreli to also pay $388,000 in restitution to one of his investors.
Shkreli first gained public notoriety in 2015 when he raised the price of the anti-parasite drug Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent while heading another pharmaceuticals company then known as Turing. The company since has changed its name to Vyera Pharmaceuticals.
