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 difference between your example and what's reportedly happened here, which is intent.

It's more similar to you managing a property for someone, and telling them you got fire insurance when you haven't yet, and then when the house burns down accidentally you work to make the money to cover what the insurance would have covered. You did commit fraud by not getting the insurance when you said you would, but you also covered the costs in the end.

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.

> That said, I agree that my analogy was bad, and I wasn't trying to assert that Shkrelli deliberately set the house on fire

Yeah, I was just trying to add more information to it, and point out what I thought were interesting portions of the case. Less a rebuttal and more an clarification and addition. :)

The case itself is very interesting because the situation is very interesting, and that's only compounded by his public persona, which is reviled by many because of prior media attention.