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Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

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Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#191

Post by s73v3r_ »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #167
s73v3r_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shkreli did not "make a mistake". He purposefully defrauded investors.

Aaron Swartz did not make a mistake. He purposely obtained unauthorized access to JSTOR and exfiltrated data for public consumption [1]. Poor judgment with minimal damage should not cost you a tenth of your life, or in Aaron's case, his entire life. [1] https://archive.org/details/JSTORSwartzEvidenceAllDocs

Yeah, no. I'm rejecting your argument. The two are nowhere near the same. Shkreli purposefully did what he did, and more so, he showed no remorse in doing it, and he insulted the court.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#192

Post by MaybiusStrip »

throwaway84742 wrote: post #121
otalp wrote: post #92

It does say something depressing about our laws that he got sent to prison for the thing where he lied to rich people while still making them money rather than the thing where he extorted sick poor people...which is still fully legal even if the majority of society thinks it shouldn't.

He didn’t “extort sick poor people”, he extorted insurance companies. If you couldn’t afford his drugs, he was offering them for free.

You do realize that insurance companies have to charge people more money than they spend in order to be profitable, right? Exorbitant drug costs is just another one of the factors that price poor people out of insurance, which is actually a much worse outcome than simply denying access to that specific drug.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#193

Post by openasocket »

sol_remmy wrote: post #75
ModernMech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your honor, I must protest this sentence! After all, my clients paid back all the money they stole from the bank!"

Your sarcasm is showing your ignorance of the law. The level of monetary damages are absolutely considered when sentencing. That is why Bernie Madoff, who caused billions in damages, got a very harsh sentence.

You're sentenced based on the severity of the illegal act, not based on the severity after you tried to smooth things over. So he would be sentenced based on the millions he defrauded, not based on the fact that the people were made whole in the long run.

Source: I just asked my girlfriend, a third year law student. Also, you know, the judge for Shkreli's case: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/pharma-...

"[U.S. District Judge] Matsumoto said in Monday’s order that under federal law, all of the money that investors put in Shkreli’s funds as a result of his fraud, about $6.4 million, must be considered loss. She also said he should get no credit for paying investors back because he only did so after they became suspicious. "

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#194

Post by sigstoat »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #161
sigstoat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not how intellectual property, property in general, or being forced to pay fines works, as is pretty clear if you read to the end of that article. if he still owned the album, and it is seized by the government, it would go up for auction, at which point whoever pays for it gets it. and they'd be under no more obligation to release/sell it than shrekli was.

We could start a GoFundMe to purchase the album and release it.

i don't know that any of the crowd funding things are structured appropriately for sending a representative to an auction to try and win something for a crowd. that would be an interesting feature for them to add. regardless, best of luck with that plan.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#195

Post by danso »

gfosco wrote: post #10
ModernMech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your honor, I must protest this sentence! After all, my clients paid back all the money they stole from the bank!"

Not really a good analogy. They invested with him, he lost it but found another way to make that money back. There wasn't any theft.

He wasn't prosecuted for theft (or embezzlement). He was prosecuted for fraud.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#196

Post by MrFantastic »

9889095r3jh wrote: post #64
sol_remmy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the outcome should matter. According to the article, "prosecutors had pushed for at least 15 years, saying Shkreli had not shown remorse for his actions" How come the jury is allow to consider his alleged lack of remorse but is not allowed to consider the outcome ? Both are current events

If he shows no remorse, and he faced no consequences, why wouldn't he pull another scam? That makes him more of a danger.

1 time is an accident, 2 times is a trend.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#197

Post by s73v3r_ »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #59
jartelt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I give you money to invest in Alphabet stock and you instead invest it in lottery tickets, that seems like theft to me regardless of whether the lottery tickets pay off or not.

it surely does sound like people are looking for excuses for the guy. it was fraud, and he has only himself to blame.

I think it's just that so many people don't want to have to think about their intentions when they do things.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#198

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

hb3b wrote: post #16
yodsanklai wrote: post #11

I used to watch some of his investment tutorials on youtube as well as other videos. For someone called the "most hated man in America", he actually seemed like a nice person. I also enjoyed his trollish sense of humor.

His video series on investing and chemistry are like an adult version of Khan Academy. Martin literally sat on-air for weeks on end with a Chemistry textbook and went chapter-by-chapter explaining each topic in pretty good detail. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gjB1PSXv_oAUSAQ16S0fA/vid...

This gives me an idea to create a hand-curated list, "Useful Knowledge From Terrible People".

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#199

Post by Clubber »

dmode wrote: post #56
Clubber wrote: post #20

Here's what we just witnessed. 1. Companies were cornering certain drugs, then hiking their prices up significantly. Shkrelli did the same thing (but stated he was willing to give it free for anyone who asked). Note, that this is not illegal in any way, but news was all over it and citizens were pissed. 2. Shkrelli, being outspoken, became the focus of this issue. He dug a hole for himself, but concerning drug prices…

How does 1,2, and 4 matter ? Did he defraud investors ? Yes. Was it illegal, yes ? How does it matter if he was a total douche. He would still be out and doing his thing if he didn't commit a crime.

It was just a summary of my observations.

>He would still be out and doing his thing if he didn't commit a crime.

Yes, this is the biggest point I was trying to push. He would still be doing it because it's perfectly legal. Other companies continue to do this because it's perfectly legal. Nothing has been done to fix this.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#200

Post by harryh »

ctrl-j wrote: post #163
rayiner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not it doesn’t. Our legal framework doesn’t oblige you to save someone’s life just because you have the means to do so. If it did, we’d all be in big trouble—for the cost of a fully loaded MacBook Pro, you could save someone from malaria in Africa. The fact that people think a particular unpopular thing shouldn’t be legal doesn’t change that. There are a lot of things people believe should be illegal that aren’t ille…

So, you would argue that directly profiting from raising the price of a necessary life-saving medication is equivalent to making charitable donations to foreign countries? That seems to be a stretch to me...

What makes it a stretch?

In both scenarios there is a tradeoff between personal gain and someone else's wellbeing.

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