Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#401

Post by sampo » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 9:56 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #169

austenallred wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a jury trial that would absolutely sway things

Which, all things considering, is ridiculous. People shouldn't be able to be convicted because they're assholes (even if they are). I don't live in the US, but being convicted by a "jury of your peers" is frankly, ridiculous. When has the average person been able to grasp complex matters relating to say, securities fraud? Most people aren't even able to stay out of debt. A panel of judges with specialised experience…

> A panel of judges with specialised experience often makes a lot more sense than a jury.

This would make sense in a country where trust in authorities is high, and people generally believe that the judges and the justice system is impartial and fair, without too much personal and hidden agendas.

But in a country where the trust in the system is lower, a jury of peers provides a safety mechanism so that the justice system cannot diverge too far from the point of view of the "common man".

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#402

Post by revelation » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

tnecniv wrote: post #40

legohead wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Watching Excel power users is really fascinating.

Lots of tapping, little happening really. This is what it must be like when your horizon starts and stops with Excel, you find yourself copying numbers from a SEC PDF to do the same model for the umpteenth time.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#403

Post by ThrustVectoring » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #389

downandout wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When fraud happens those affected don't usually get their money back much less a return on that money. That will be a footnote at sentencing. Federal sentencing is generally based on intended or actual loss, whichever is greater . Further, the judge is allowed to take into account intended losses from his entire course of conduct, not just the intended losses from the specific counts on which he was found guilty. In…

> In other words, the fact that his investors lost no actual money will have little bearing on his sentence AFAICT, the Retrophin investors lost actual money. The losses came out of gains and reduced them, and they still had net gains from Retrophin, but they lost money to the fraud.

Isn't Mr. Shkreli one of those Retrophin investors, too? Like, he could have made his defrauded hedge fund clients whole out of his stake in Retorphin, rather than from Retrophin as a whole.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#404

Post by l33tbro » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #341

surrey-fringe wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice armchair psychology. Do you have more?

I'm not sure a well-known phenomenon (talented sociopaths can make excellent manipulators & get everyone to love them within five minutes of meeting) counts as armchair psychology.

I think the point is that 'sociopath' has become used as a tired catch-all for anyone displaying a few traits of the disorder, as in this case.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#405

Post by randyrand » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:05 PM UTC

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #24

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…

> Shkreli seems to be trying to expose this hypocrisy, but the news loves their stories. It's hard to buy into this when he was directly profiting from this attempt to expose.

Why not both? What he's doing, creating outrage legally, is one of the most effective ways to create positive change that actually affects the whole industry. And hes making money too! Win-win?

He committed early on to give financial aid to those that could not afford the new drug's price. His conscious is rather clean. I see it no different to what most private schools do - charge a huge sticker price then offer aid, so that everyone gets charged as much as they can afford, even if barely.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#406

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:06 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #169

austenallred wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a jury trial that would absolutely sway things

Which, all things considering, is ridiculous. People shouldn't be able to be convicted because they're assholes (even if they are). I don't live in the US, but being convicted by a "jury of your peers" is frankly, ridiculous. When has the average person been able to grasp complex matters relating to say, securities fraud? Most people aren't even able to stay out of debt. A panel of judges with specialised experience…

A jury trial is a privilege which defendants can choose to waive.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#407

Post by zo1 » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:08 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #334

jliptzin wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at the very least there should be some kind of juror training process. You'd still tap people from the general public, but these people could maybe serve up to 5 year terms where being a juror is their full time job for that time period, they're trained in advance, they go through some kind of testing period, maybe shadow a couple other juries, and then they go on to serve on real juries. Obviously this would…

Besides being extremely disruptive to jurors' lives, you also have many of the same problems of an all-judge system (people becoming too close to prosecutors and wanting to the rule the "right" way, etc.) without the mitigation provided by the bar and full legal training.

Seemingly free and "just" governments have done much more "disruptive" things in the past, so there is precedent. E.g. Conscription and mandatory military training.

Edit: Typo.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#408

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:09 PM UTC

Lewton wrote: post #381

Clubber wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patrick Rice gets it free for life after a Reddit AMA. Google not work for you, or were you trying to stonewall the discussion with Rush Limbaugh tactics? http://nypost.com/2016/02/02/i-was-a-victim-of-the-pharma-ja...

There's that one, very public, case. That happened after the entire ordeal blew up, and happened after shkreli had said that people got it for free if they needed it It's not nothing, but it's not exactly impressive either

[deleted]

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#409

Post by matt_wulfeck » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:09 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #345

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…

>When fraud happens those affected don't usually get their money back much less a return on that money. That will be a footnote at sentencing. Federal sentencing is generally based on intended or actual loss, whichever is greater . Further, the judge is allowed to take into account intended losses from his entire course of conduct, not just the intended losses from the specific counts on which he was found guilty. In…

> The government likes to punish people for making them expend the time and effort of a trial

While I understand why this is true, I hate it about our legal system. If you're not guilty then you shouldn't be coerced into a plea because of the draconian maximum punishment they hold over your head.

This is evident nowhere more clearly than drug convictions, where they can lock you up for the rest of your life because you're doing something they don't like.

Re: Martin Shkreli is found guilty of securities fraud

#410

Post by coldtea » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #169

austenallred wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a jury trial that would absolutely sway things

Which, all things considering, is ridiculous. People shouldn't be able to be convicted because they're assholes (even if they are). I don't live in the US, but being convicted by a "jury of your peers" is frankly, ridiculous. When has the average person been able to grasp complex matters relating to say, securities fraud? Most people aren't even able to stay out of debt. A panel of judges with specialised experience…

>Which, all things considering, is ridiculous. People shouldn't be able to be convicted because they're assholes (even if they are).

Why not? This is basically what the law does as well: codifies what society considers punishable assholery (e.g. murdering people or stealing or etc...).

So convicting him because he has been as asshole (even if it's in an unrelated case) is not that different to convicting him for being guilt on this or that legally defined behavior -- it's just not written down in a law book.