Martin Shkreli's Twitter account suspended following harassment of journalist

Martin Shkreli.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Twitter has suspended the account of Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive charged with fraud in 2015 who faced widespread criticism when his company raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750, after he spent days harassing a female journalist.

Lauren Duca began tweeting screenshots of messages she received from Shkreli on Thursday — he invited her to be his date to Donald Trump's inauguration, and she declined by announcing, "I'd rather eat my own organs." On Sunday, she tweeted to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a photo manipulated to look like she was sitting next to Shkreli (in the original picture, she's with her husband) that Shkreli used as his Twitter photo, and a Twitter banner comprised solely of pictures of Duca. "How is this allowed?" she asked.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.