'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Found Guilty of 3 of 8 Charges, Including Securities Fraud (cnbc.com)
Former pharmaceutical chief executive Martin Shkreli has been found guilty of securities fraud. A New York City jury returned the verdict after five days of deliberations. From a report: Shkreli, 34, was convicted of some of the eight criminal counts that he had faced, which had included securities fraud and conspiracy to commit both securities fraud and wire fraud, after a more-than-month-long trial in Brooklyn, New York, federal court. Of the eight counts, Shkreli was found guilty of three. Those included conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and two counts of securities fraud. He was found not guilty of five counts, including those related to wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The guy ran a ponzi scheme, at points when he was claiming $100million in fund assets when he only had $1000 in the funds account. In the end he stole money from his new company's investors to pay off the fund investors he'd cheated so they wouldn't go to the cops.
I bet the jury didn't convict him on the charges because his investors were made whole by the second theft. But when you commit a crime like he did it doesn't matter if you eventually make them whole, you commit the crime when you lie and commit fraud. I don't know if the court didn't explain this well enough to the jury or what, but the man defrauded hundreds of people, then stole money from Retrophin to pay back the investors from his failed hedge fund. He's no better than Madoff and he should go to jail for YEARS and be bared from any type of job in involving managing money including a cashier at the local grocery store.
He's a dumpster fire of a human being and he broke the law and should do the time. I hope he spends a whole lot of time in a 8x10 cell all by himself.
He'll be out of prison in under 5 years and go right back to do all the things that made him rich at the expense of other people... He's rich and white... and our justice system is baby soft on white collar criminals.
1: NEVER STEAL FROM RICH PEOPLE. Only steal from middle-class and below.
2. If you're still going to steal from rich people, make sure they're not white.
3. If you obey rules 1 & 2, don't be such a pulsating rectal cyst that even rich white people hate you.
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I'm afraid this is one of those we don't have a law related to this guy doing things that are legal but morally wrong so we're going to pick through everything until we can find something to nail him with.
So what? He committed the crimes he was convicted of, none of which are minor crimes. The prosecutors used the tools available to them to take a piece of shit who doesn't belong in a civilized society and put him in a place where he will perhaps learn some humility. Oh who am I kidding, I hope he bunks with an HIV+ weight lifter that likes cute "bros".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
People should not go to prison just because they're assholes.
But that would be a better world than one in which the prisons are filled with people who smoked some weed or took one of Grandpa's pain pills.
I hate Shkreli as much as the next internet person, but let's not wish rape on the guy. "Cruel and unusual punishment" is explicitly rejected by our justice system, the integrity of which is already shaky enough. For everyone like this guy that's "earned it", there's another in that same situation who was wrongfully convicted, and is now being doubly punished.
Most of the elected representatives are my age or older. I went to school with kids who had been injured by thalidomide (hi Anthony, wherever you are!) They are going to be very careful about pharma.
And yes, the pharma companies have the best government they could buy, I can't deny that either.
I am fine with drug imports if they are what they say they are, and are made with compliance to health-based standards. But somebody has to audit all of them. There is no shortage of quacks and thieves.
Bruce Perens.