THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And he has brought to us, through his FBI elves, a Christmas present to gladden the hearts of millions of Americans. Martin Shkreli, the man with the most punchable face, has been arrested for securities fraud. The charges predate his assholery regarding his new drug company.

Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and former hedge fund manager who has come under fire on allegations of drug price gouging, was arrested Thursday morning by the federal authorities.

The investigation, in which Mr. Shkreli has been charged with securities fraud, is related to his time as a hedge fund manager and running the biopharmaceutical company Retrophin — not the price-gouging controversy that has swirled around him.

Mr. Shkreli, 32, is now chief executive and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals, which has drawn scrutiny for acquiring a decades-old drug and raising the price of it overnight to $750 a pill, from $13.50. In a recent interview with The New York Times, he acknowledged the regulatory and criminal investigations into claims of wrongdoing at hedge funds he once controlled as well as at Retrophin, but was dismissive of the inquiries’ importance.

He was arrested in his Midtown Manhattan apartment. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn were expected to hold a news conference on the charges later Thursday.

Evan L. Greebel, a corporate lawyer who joined Kaye Scholer last summer and had worked with Mr. Shkreli, was also arrested Thursday morning. Andrea Orzehoski, a spokeswoman for Kaye Scholer, said in an email that “the transactions in question predate his arrival to the firm.”

In addition to an indictment filed on Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a lawsuit contending that Mr. Shkreli’s empire was built on lies to his investors.

According to the suit: He told investors in his hedge fund that he had a prominent industry auditing firm, which he did not. In a 2010 email, he told investors his MSMB Capital Management fund had returned 37.77 percent since its founding when in fact it had sustained losses of 18 percent. He also told investors the firm had assets of $35 million when in fact it had less than $1,000 in the bank and its brokerage accounts.

In 2011, while running MSMB Capital Management, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which adopted a controversial business strategy. It acquired old, neglected drugs often used for rare diseases and substantially raised their prices. Retrophin, for example, raised the price of Thiola, used to treat a disease that causes kidney stones, to $30 a pill from $1.50. In 2012, he took Retrophin public through a merger with a publicly traded shell company.

Slick little bastard stayed in the public eye a little too long. He should have retired off shore somewhere before this last scam. Now he will make bail and we will have to wait until the jury returns. At least we will have the pictures of his arrest for small comfort.