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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

#281

Post by bmelton »

kbenson wrote: post #225
bmelton wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he defrauded them in order to get their 3x return. Put simply, if I burn my house down in order to collect the insurance money, I've committed insurance fraud whether or not I pay that money back, and no amount of profit on the payback negates the illegality.

Although, interestingly, he didn't steal their money, he lost it in a bad trade, which is probably (maybe?) covered under the risks associated with the fund's operation. The deception was not telling people their money was gone (and also lying somewhat about details of the fund initially). Given that the loss was an accident that he didn't profit from, and that he worked to repay the money, there's a critical differe…

The fraud part, which also happens to have been the illegal part, is that he misrepresented the size of the situation while soliciting investments. It might eventually have been true, but was specifically not true at the time he made the statements he made.

That said, I agree that my analogy was bad, and I wasn't trying to assert that Shkrelli deliberately set the house on fire as much as I was just looking for an appropriate analogy of something that is illegal even though it did not have any financial damages.

The point was that while damages from fraud may be financial, the fraud is the damage, and the lie is the crime.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#282

Post by Guncat12 »

discombobulate wrote: post #77

I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming. He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. He does, however, have a couple of major flaws. 1) He trolls. Hard. 2) It seems he lies. Which I picked up from a previous news article. (He claimed to have ~$50mm under management @ his previous hedge fund. It was more like $1.6mm. Something like that). I can forgive the trolling. It's over the…

The reason you like Martin is because you are young and naive and you wish you had his life. This is further evidenced by your very black-and-white, idealistic "lying is the worst thing a person can do" mentality.

I can only hope then when you grow older, you will realize how ridiculous your current way of thinking is.

> Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted. I'm being honest. Fuck you people, frankly.

This is exactly the response that I would expect from a young person like you when they face criticism. Haters gonna hate, am I right?

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#283

Post by Clubber »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #45
hood_syntax wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great if he wasn't one of many, and if nothing of significance will come from this ruling (it won't). He's just a convenient target that can be pointed to and said of "Look, aren't we doing our job?" when the truth is nothing will change in the long run.

> "That would be great if he wasn't one of many" You could say the same for almost any crime. Why should those who commit white-collar crime be allowed to continue without repercussions, whilst those who commit much smaller offences get jail time?

The problem is now Congress can sit back and do nothing for a few years regarding Pharma, since the masses and media will be satisfied with this. Nothing changes.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#284

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Sangermaine wrote: post #188
discombobulate wrote: post #77

I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming. He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. He does, however, have a couple of major flaws. 1) He trolls. Hard. 2) It seems he lies. Which I picked up from a previous news article. (He claimed to have ~$50mm under management @ his previous hedge fund. It was more like $1.6mm. Something like that). I can forgive the trolling. It's over the…

>He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. People keep saying this as if it matters. What did you expect, that he'd be a drooling idiot? So he's smart and personable. Of course he is, most con men are.

There's this weird feeling that somehow, even though he's gouging everyone who pays for insurance at best and just the sick at worst and after being found guilty of fraud we should still like him and because why? Because he's familiar with internet culture in the same way we are? Afterall, he may be a fraudster and a gouger but he's not so bad because he's also a troller! He may be a conman but he's our conman (and intelligent!)

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#285

Post by aphextron »

discombobulate wrote: post #77

I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming. He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. He does, however, have a couple of major flaws. 1) He trolls. Hard. 2) It seems he lies. Which I picked up from a previous news article. (He claimed to have ~$50mm under management @ his previous hedge fund. It was more like $1.6mm. Something like that). I can forgive the trolling. It's over the…

>I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming.

He's a sociopath, of course you liked him. That's what those kind of people do. Build confidence and exploit people.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#287

Post by CobrastanJorji »

bdcravens wrote: post #195
jjxw wrote: post #118

There seems to be a misconception regarding what Shkreli was found guilty of. The legal case here has very little to do with the pharmaceutical pricing controversy - it is a separate case based on a separate hedge fund that he managed. The gist of it is that he took people's money to start a hedge fund, lied to investors that the fund was doing fine when the hedge fund went belly up, but ended up returning everyone's…

Similar to OJ's recent parole that had nothing to do with the murder he was accused of committing. MSM, the previous victim's families, etc, seem to be conflating the two.

That's different, though. The goal of a parole suitability hearing is to determine whether an inmate poses an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released from prison. A data point like "this prisoner murdered some people" is very relevant to that determination.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#288

Post by freehunter »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #142
ceejayoz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it, so that he was really only screwing insurance companies. Screwing insurance companies means increased costs for everyone . I'd really rather not pay 20% higher premiums every year to pad someone like Shkreli's pocketbook.

Sure, but the solution is not to wish that people like Shkreli don't raise prices on their drugs. Instead, we need to reform the US healthcare system to stop problems like this. Many drugs of similar kind, as Shkreli would point out, have a similar price. The difference is that those drugs are owned by faceless pharmaceutical companies with PR teams. Shkreli was an obnoxious person who was doing an obnoxious thing an…

>the solution is not to wish that people like Shkreli don't raise prices on their drugs

I can wish whatever the hell I want to wish. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right, and everyone here arguing that he's a good person because he's not doing anything illegal is inherently arguing that "legal" == "morally right".

No. He's still a shitty person and I can wish him the most painfully infected ingrown toenails and I will still sleep soundly at night.

I wish that people would do the right thing. I also wish Congress would fix our health care issues. I can do both, and they're both just as likely to happen. In the meantime, he deserves all the public shame in the world.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#289

Post by watwut »

emodendroket wrote: post #251
watwut wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"because it creates a much easier environment for an arbitrary court system to throw people in jail who are innocent and removes other protections like jury nullification. You could look at Japan, which tried to solve its problem of innocent people going to jail by introducing a lay-judge system (kind of like jurors who can ask questions during the trial), for a real-life example of some of the problems you might hav…

And you think getting rid of juries would help, or at least not make things worse? One of the reasons it's so high is that most cases are resolved as part of the plea system and never go to trial.

Which happens because of power prosecutors have (ability to decide charge which makes all the difference - plea can make difference between a year and risk of 30 years in prison) which has little to do with jury vs judge. Majority of defendants deciding that they don't want to risk (or cant afford) a day in court is not an argument for that system.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#290

Post by aphextron »

>“Rarely has a white-collar criminal defendant evoked hatred and scorn from public in the way Shkreli has. Shkreli’s willingness to lie, step on people, flaunt his wealth and look down on others made him a villain that many wanted to see go down in flames,” said James Goodnow, an attorney with Fennemore Craig, a corporate defense firm.

This attitude is just disgusting, and indicative of precisely what has gone wrong with our society. "White collar" criminals who steal millions are deserving of leniency and mercy. But the "thug" who stole $20 from a 7/11 deserves 20 years.

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