Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by danso » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #353

danso wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t we approach his sentence from the opposite direction: the prosecution proposed a 15-year sentence, which is less than a reported max of ~25 years under federal guidelines. 7 years is a fraction of what Shkreli could face, so why don’t we accuse her of being emotionally swayed to be lenient? I agree that feelings are inextricably involved when human judges and juries make decisions. And all initiatives to co…

>Why don’t we approach his sentence from the opposite direction: the prosecution proposed a 15-year sentence, which is less than a reported max of ~25 years under federal guidelines. 7 years is a fraction of what Shkreli could face, so why don’t we accuse her of being emotionally swayed to be lenient? Because other, similar cases seem to have lesser sentences, not greater. This case has a larger sentence compared to…

I’m ready to be convinced, but which similar cases are we talking about?

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

#382

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #320

brucephillips wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, only the insurance companies paid his exorbitant prices.

Increases to insurance company costs are passed on, with markup, to the insured.

No, in the United States they're generally passed on to the insured's employer. There are several negative aspects of that, but the big one is that the patient is less likely to complain about being overcharged if someone else is paying for it.

The whole idea of employer-paid insurance in the U.S. is an artifact of some tax law jiggery pokery back in (if I'm remembering right) the Depression/WWII era. Before that people paid for their own health insurance.

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

#383

Post by danso » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

daxorid wrote: post #355

danso wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t we approach his sentence from the opposite direction: the prosecution proposed a 15-year sentence, which is less than a reported max of ~25 years under federal guidelines. 7 years is a fraction of what Shkreli could face, so why don’t we accuse her of being emotionally swayed to be lenient? I agree that feelings are inextricably involved when human judges and juries make decisions. And all initiatives to co…

Thank you for this response. I'm genuinely curious about this, though: > You think the judge faces no risk if she decides to draw up a sentence without defensible legal basis? What are the risks that judges face? My understanding is that Federal judges are appointed for life, with no chance of removal outside of impeachment. Is this not the case?

I didn’t mean to imply an obvious direct risk (e.g. impeachment or being voted out), but I do assume the judge is not completely uninterested in moving up the federal circuit. Being called out, or having a decision overturned due to impropriety, on a very famous case, may not be necessarily nothing to the judge. Of course it works both ways — a too lenient sentence puts her under scrutiny too. But I think burden of proof is on those who think she is being too harsh when it specifically comes to Shkreli.

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

#384

Post by maskedinvader » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:46 AM UTC

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #280

maskedinvader wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not according to the Judge who cited Federal Law to determine he did incur 10.4 million in losses for the investors [1], it's complicated even though he did pay the investors back after they became suspicious. My understanding is this, say you leave your ferrari at the valet and the valet driver took it on a joy ride and returns it undamaged, you didn't lose anything, but the valet driver did break the law. 1. https:…

What law is the valet breaking in that case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime)

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

#385

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:48 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #382

dragonwriter wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increases to insurance company costs are passed on, with markup, to the insured.

No, in the United States they're generally passed on to the insured's employer . There are several negative aspects of that, but the big one is that the patient is less likely to complain about being overcharged if someone else is paying for it. The whole idea of employer-paid insurance in the U.S. is an artifact of some tax law jiggery pokery back in (if I'm remembering right) the Depression/WWII era. Before that pe…

> No, in the United States they're generally passed on to the insured's employer.

Who takes them out of the total amount they are willing to pay for labor, so it still comes from the insured.

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

#386

Post by odammit » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:50 AM UTC

no_one_ever wrote: post #229

odammit wrote: post #177

Is he getting a comfy white collar prison sentence? Also, not to be that guy, but I hope he gets beat daily by other inmates. Edit: jk, totally being that guy.

dude...

Chill, even his lawyer wants to punch him in the face.

http://time.com/5193461/martin-shkreli-lawyer-punch-face/

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

#387

Post by Meekro » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC

verylittlemeat wrote: post #371

tpush wrote: post #184

The majority of comments here being sad about Shkreli kinda reaffirms my views about HN, I have to say. Shkreli always seemed like a personified 4chan teenager "memelord" with money. Good to see that playing out your delusions of grandeur and arrogance toward the justice system is met with consequences. Maybe in prison he will mature a bit.

I think you're going for the low hanging fruit by judging HN that way. The more interesting thing is that the majority of comments are shocked by the 7 year sentence rather than the minority who think he was "an ok guy." I keep seeing this naive understanding of the law over and over again in tech circles. The justice system is made up of several people with a ton of leeway on how laws are applied. The letter of the…

> I've spent a lot of time around lawyers and judges and I can tell you they have absolutely no tolerance for the kind of "well, actually" smart-asses that the tech community excels at churning out.

It sounds like the smart-asses' only mistake is thinking that the same clever lawyering that protects the rich and powerful will work for them as well. The guys who put a keylogger in pirated software were in the wrong, but after seeing Sony do basically the same thing and get away with it[1], I can see how they might think that courts will give you a free pass if you come up with some loophole or something.

Martin Shkreli, like the rest of us, has no-doubt seen the rich and powerful flout the law and walk away clean after invoking some ridiculous legalism. Then he got rich, and figured he could do the same. Turns out that he's either not rich enough yet, or power flows from something other than money.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

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

#388

Post by maskedinvader » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 1:59 AM UTC

eric_h wrote: post #308

walshemj wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine ROTFL I think I will leave that typo in :_)

My brain autocorrected it right back to what was intended on both the first and second readings :P

ha me too, had to read a third time to see what the typo was.

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

#389

Post by BenSahar » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

rainieri wrote: post #369

BenSahar wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his fan club is hilarious. That they picked such a whiney troll to follow speaks volumes about their character.

Nobody is actually following him as you describe. Most of people that side with him do so because they are amazed at the unfounded witch hunt that he received and at the amount of people who demonize him 95% because of the Daraprim drama and 5% for his actual conviction. And of that 5% - 0.5% might have an idea of what they are talking about. See his videos. You wouldn't stand a chance debating him unless you were a…

>See his videos. You wouldn't stand a chance debating him unless you were a lawyer or pharmaceutical exec.

I have. He's seemingly a intelligent guy with some personality issues that have gotten him into trouble. I hope he takes time during his sentence to seek help because he seemingly has more to offer the world than trolling and unethical professional behavior.

Beside that, I don't care about Shkreli himself or the silly trolling (Wu Tang, Hillary Hair, etc). I have a fascination with fan club that feels the need to hand wave his behavior every time their is a discussion about him.

Yes, it's awful that we forgot about the pharmaceutical industry's price gouging schemes.

Yes, it's awful that people get away with worse financial crimes than Shkreli has been convicted of.

Yes, there are much worse people in the world than this small-time pharma player turned troll/media sensation.

None of that excuses the fact that he committed fraud and the handwaving of his behavior doesn't do anything to highlight the other injustices.

People that defend him may think that they are being profound by sticking up for him and possibly highlighting injustice. In reality, they appear to be diminishing the seriousness of unethical behavior and justifying self-indulgent and childish behavior.

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

#390

Post by wils1245 » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #187

birken wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or hate it, this is what the SEC does. You think Martha Stewart deserved jail time for making 50k in an insider trading scheme she didn't really care about? The SEC finds very public cases and then brings the hammer down in order to act a deterrent. Martin Shkreli broke the law, something he didn't have to do. It isn't like it was mob justice and some hugely biased jury convicted him of all the crimes he was…

Well put. Just because O.J. was found not guilty and no big bankers went to jail in 2008 doesn't mean judges in other courtrooms are going to relax their standards when you flip them off https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Penelope-Soto-Woman-Who-...

OJ is an interesting example, as his sentence for armed robbery was considered extreme compared to the facts of his case, and influenced by the fact he away with murder.

I think it’s troubling that judges have the ability to hand down sentences far above some established norm, even if those sentences are legal.