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Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#51

Post by andrewla »

hellofunk wrote: post #25
cloakandswagger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Who did Shkreli hurt here and how?

One could argue that he hurt a lot of sick people by making it very difficult or impossible for them to afford the hundreds of percent price increases he laid upon the drugs he took control over. Edit: [0] "... it says that the drug is available for free to people with deep financial need. But Dr. Aberg has watched her patients have to "jump through the hoops" to get it. Patients have to prove both financial need and…

To be fair, he was not convicted of that, and it's arguable whether that entailed committed a crime.

The particular crime that he was charged with and convicted of was "victimless"-ish. That is, he lied to investors, basically running a Ponzi scheme (specifically, reporting that their balance was higher than it actually was to prevent them from trying to pull out their money), but instead of the usual deal where the scheme collapses, he managed to make enough money to make his investors whole.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#52

Post by Sangermaine »

Clubber wrote: post #5

I use to hate this guy, then I saw the Vice interview on him. It was nice to see his side of the story. I don't know much about this case in particular. It was kinda sleazy to see the congress question him about his price increases when they knew damn well it was perfectly legal and they haven't done anything to stop it. Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. Vice inter…

He tried to expose "hypocrisy" by committing fraud and pricing vital medication out of many people who need it's ability to pay? All the while acting like a complete asshole and working hard to disrupt his own trial?

How will society ever survive without this white knight's protection?

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#54

Post by Clubber »

swang wrote: post #22
Clubber wrote: post #5

I use to hate this guy, then I saw the Vice interview on him. It was nice to see his side of the story. I don't know much about this case in particular. It was kinda sleazy to see the congress question him about his price increases when they knew damn well it was perfectly legal and they haven't done anything to stop it. Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. Vice inter…

> Prosecutors argued that Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and the pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. Shkreli told investors he graduated from Columbia University, that his hedge fund was large and profitable, and that he had hired an auditor, they said. These were all lies, according to prosecutors. yeah seems like a great dude...

Also, according to the NYT article, all investors tripled their money.

"The investors who invested all made money — by the defense’s tally, more than triple what they invested."

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#55

Post by Sangermaine »

kbenson wrote: post #50
swang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prosecutors argued that Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and the pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. Shkreli told investors he graduated from Columbia University, that his hedge fund was large and profitable, and that he had hired an auditor, they said. These were all lies, according to prosecutors. yeah seems like a great dude...

Interestingly, his fraud seems to fall into two categories. Lying about his fund's bonafides and status on one side, and working hard to make sure those same investors got what they were expecting by founding a company, making it successful and paying them out from the profits. It sounds like he definitely lied to investors, but he apparently didn't intend to steal their money, and took pains to make sure he did not…

Are you kidding? He's human garbage, let him rot. It's astounding how people are being taken in by this con man.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#56

Post by mattjack »

legohead wrote: post #12
Clubber wrote: post #5

I use to hate this guy, then I saw the Vice interview on him. It was nice to see his side of the story. I don't know much about this case in particular. It was kinda sleazy to see the congress question him about his price increases when they knew damn well it was perfectly legal and they haven't done anything to stop it. Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. Vice inter…

The YouTube video of him doing an Ebay Analysis [1] was very interesting I thought, both from a technical point of view and another look at his character. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSf5YhYQbw

Thank you so much for sharing this, I've been looking for something just like it.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#57

Post by and0 »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #13
sqeaky wrote: post #7

Putting people like Shkreli into prison for a long time is vital to the long term stability of society. I wish money didn't buy options to avoid prison and I wish that people with his behaviors didn't so often accrue large amounts of money.

Can you elaborate? Who did Shkreli hurt here and how?

He was found guilty of defrauding investors. He started a fund, lost a bunch of the money trying to make more money for himself doing unrelated things with it, and only gave it back much later by repeatedly lying to the original investors and then making some of the money back via other means (turning it into stock in a new pharma company, iirc).

It was wildly irresponsible and definitely fraudulent.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#58

Post by loeg »

setra wrote: post #6

Note that this does not have anything to do with his pricing of pharmaceuticals. From a different article: "Prosecutors say Shkreli looted his drug company to pay back investors in two failed hedge funds he ran. The defense says investors got their original investments back and even made hefty profits."

In theory it had nothing to do with it, although it's not clear that the prosecution would have gone after him without that negative attention. Also, it had an effect on the juror pool.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#59

Post by MichaelGG »

hellofunk wrote: post #25
cloakandswagger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Who did Shkreli hurt here and how?

One could argue that he hurt a lot of sick people by making it very difficult or impossible for them to afford the hundreds of percent price increases he laid upon the drugs he took control over. Edit: [0] "... it says that the drug is available for free to people with deep financial need. But Dr. Aberg has watched her patients have to "jump through the hoops" to get it. Patients have to prove both financial need and…

Is that true? He has repeatedly said that if they are paying for it directly, he will give it to them for free (or $1 or so?) -- that the prices were only for insurers. Certainly it should be easy to find people that got hurt and he denied to help, right?

Also, this is the system's fault for giving a monopoly on a product to someone. Who knows how many other medicines are out there existing purely on someone's kindhearted desire to not make money.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#60

Post by [deleted] »

Clubber wrote: post #5

I use to hate this guy, then I saw the Vice interview on him. It was nice to see his side of the story. I don't know much about this case in particular. It was kinda sleazy to see the congress question him about his price increases when they knew damn well it was perfectly legal and they haven't done anything to stop it. Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. Vice inter…

[deleted]
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