1. Shkreli lied to investors. Regardless of whether the investors eventually made money, Shkreli put them needlessly at risk, and broke the law.
2. He could have gone away for 15 years, or walked away with a slap on the wrist. The judge sentenced him for 7 years in prison, given the fact that this guy showed no remorse, and thought it made him likely to reoffend, perhaps with more serious consequences.
Sadly, It's still perfectly legal to corner a drug and hike the prices. That was the bigger crime, and it continues to go on, costing taxpayers and patients millions if not billions of dollars, and sometimes costing their health.
Yes, hiking drug prices isn't what you should be looking at. Look at Shkrelli! He's in jail; problem solved. Politicians are now off the hook with this conviction. No problem here, justice served. /s
Not only are these companies jacking up prices with monopolistic practices, but they are eroding the legitimacy of the FDA (also to their benefit).
This is how all patents work. Are you against patents?
Shkrelli is a scapegoat in reagards to the drug price hiking. It's still going on; it's still perfectly legal; and it seems the politicians are getting paid to keep it that way.
It's more of a thought of how the citizenry can get manipulated. Shkrelli was the face of this practice; Shkrelli is in jail; justice served. Or so the narrative seems to be.
I may or may not agree with the justness of the sentence, but that wasn't the thrust of my argument, therefore the distraction.
And thus the "here's what happened" attitude is exactly false; what happened was a petulant fraudster got a middle-of-the-road sentence for exactly the crime he was on trial for.
I'm including all the "Pharmabro" chapters over the last couple of years. Google his name. He isn't famous for fraud.
The original replier (9889095r3jh) had an issue with (3), which is not really an accurate summarization (I don't think the prosecutors acted because he was hated; using the word misstate makes it seem like a mistake rather than outright lying; and it's totally irrelevant whether he tripled their money).
I agree we should change the regulation structure to prevent drug price hiking: any suggestions on how to do it? I for one would love to donate money to this cause if it's actionable.
Also, I'm sorry you're getting a lot of flak for that comment. It's mostly nitpicking, so safe to ignore once you see the point the nitpickers are making (including me).
...the fund was managing $35 million in assets and had an independent auditor.
He said he later learned both of those claims were false
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/investo...
That is a lie and therefore fraud, but the 7 year sentence seems out of line with the actual fraud committed (there are degrees).
Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.
He made the defrauded investors money. In this crazy country, I'm not sure that giving someone shares in another company to cover other losses is illegal (Retrophin Inc). It seems like a Ponzi, but who knows. Fund managers are given a hell of a lot of leeway.
So to summarize, 7 years seem harsh for lying about the size of the assets and an independent auditor, given the fact that the investors made money. To me this seems more in line that he was punished for the press he got, and embarrassing Congress when they called him in for his perfectly legal monopolistic practices. I would much rather him be convicted for that.
I don't think the outcome should matter. Lying to investors should land you in jail. It shouldn't become okay "if investors still made money"
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
Also, I don't agree with GP, but arguably the outcome is less relevant to the risk to society posed by reoffense than is genuine remorse or the lack thereof.
In this case, his crime had no negative impact on anyone, and the unduly harsh sentence sure looks like a sentence for the unlikable (but perfectly legal) price hikes he did.
Here's a Newsweek article from September 2015, when the Turing Pharmaceuticals story broke: http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-drug-manipulation-dar...
> Since at least in January, Shkreli has been under criminal investigation by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, court records show. And Shkreli is not alone—some of his business associates have also received grand jury subpoenas in the case.
haha no... he LOST their money (All of it), LIED about it (fraud), and paid them back with OTHER funds.
Get the facts right first. Misstated - information, the only misstatements are in your post.
(Reuters) - One of the investors former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is accused of defrauding testified on Wednesday that Shkreli lied to him repeatedly, although he eventually made millions of dollars from the investment.
This was apparently the guy who alerted investigators to the fraud. He made millions.
If I lose your money, lie to you, but then I give you 10X your money because I had that in a bank account somewhere because I won the lottery doesn't mean that I didn't commit fraud in relation to your original investment.
Just because your "investment" was repaid at a greater amount doesn't mean you weren't defrauded. He made money because of a settlement, NOT because the investment was in pharma. From your own source article:
...largely through an agreement in which Shkreli gave him shares in his drug company Retrophin Inc.
Shkreli committed fraud, got caught, investors realized they were defrauded, Shkreli then settled privately and paid them above their initial investments with funds completely unrelated to their investments.
He made millions because Shkreli got lucky and was able to settle with them privately. That does not absolve him from the criminal actions he committed just because he settled the civil cases. If Shkreli didn't get lucky with his pharma scheme those investors would not get paid back because their original investment funds were all gone long ago, and again, were not involved in the pharma scheme.
You seem to lack the understanding of the facts in this case.
Show me where I said he didn't commit fraud. Tell me which facts are wrong. I cited where he made his investors money. You just threw insults. Jackass.
His investors only eventually made money after Shkreli paid them in stock and cash from Retrophin.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, have argued that Shkreli should not get any credit for what they described as stealing from Retrophin to pay off the investors.
source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/09/pharma-bro-shkreli-to-be-sen...
That's not really how it works.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-28/big-compa...
"The government's argument is that those investors did lose money; it's just that Shkreli eventually paid them back after they started complaining. If your fraud loses money for investors, and they catch you, and you pay them back, then the losses still count. And while Shkreli has an argument that that's not what happened here -- that he gave Retrophin stock to the funds out of the goodness of his heart after they suffered honest losses, rather than to settle legal claims from disgruntled investors accusing him of fraud -- it is frankly not a very good one. And so he is getting tagged with the full amount that investors put into his funds, even though those investors all ultimately got paid back.
That seems analytically correct, though also a bit rough on him. Shkreli is obviously an unpopular character but he is not, as these things go, a particularly bad fraudster. His lawyers were seeking a sentence of "perhaps just 16 months or less," and that actually sounds about right to me for this sort of fraud. If he gets much more than that, I suppose it can be technically justified by legal arguments about the amount of loss that he caused, but I suspect it will really be driven more by his all-around dreadfulness."
Isn't that exactly what the justice system is in place to prevent?
This is spot on. That gives a heck of a lot of power to news organizations. That's scary when thinking of the quality and journalistic integrity of many, if not most news organizations. People react much more strongly to what they read/watch/listen to on the news. If the news can get them hyped up on a topic (opioid crises is the latest) then the politicians react, typically just enough to get the news off their back. We're left with ham-fisted solutions that make the problem worse. x30 years.
[0] a “republic” in the sense of a regime where government is notionally an institution for the interest of the public rather than a private property interest of a ruler or distinct ruling class; in non-republics, the non-public “owners” are the persons of whose offense consequences are institutionalized by the criminal justice system.
Until being offensive is illegal, it should hold no bearing in a just trial. Fortunately, we have the first amendment, which makes being an obnoxious asshole in and of itself perfectly legal.
Constitutions and codes of laws in a republic are intermediate tools to the effect discussed.
> Maybe some ex post Latin?
You mean, more than “republic” is ex post Latin?
Aaron Swartz was eligible for 50 years in prison and a million dollar fine based on his computer crimes. That's fair too, right?
Y'all need some empathy and compassion. People are human, and make mistakes. The punishment should fit the crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Arrest_and_prosec...
You're using the absolute maximum prosecutors were threatening Swartz with in order to extract a plea deal. They would not have brought anything near that to trial had it gone to trial, much less convicted him on it. In fact, in your link, this is what he was offered: "During plea negotiations with Swartz's attorneys, the prosecutors offered to recommend a sentence of six months in a low-security prison".
The statute Swartz was charged under has also widely been recognized as flawed. Not the case with what Shkreli was charged with.
The allowance for empathy, compassion and mistakes are what lead to the (to you) unfair punishment that was given.
Poor judgment with minimal damage should not cost you a tenth of your life, or in Aaron's case, his entire life.
>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.
It was a white collar crime. NO monetary damages. And 8 years?? Clearly they sentenced him for 8 years for political reasons
[0] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines
[1] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-...
speaks to me of a culture problem here.
Like a lot of sociopaths, he has figured out that most people are nicer than him and he can get away with a lot of outrageous behavior because most people are simply better behaved than him, so he is unlikely to be crapped on to the degree that he is all too happy to crap on others.
Hopefully the long sentence will clue him that betting that way stops working if you push it far enough. No, you don't get to disregard social norms in how you treat others, then bank on them protecting you. Life is a two way street. Social contracts involve two parts. You don't get to endlessly abuse social norms because your wiring is outside the norm and being mean is perfectly comfortable to you.
Shkrelli still made a perfect scapegoat. The news has seemed to move on from the monopolistic practices thing like it never happened.
https://www.thebalance.com/role-of-derivatives-in-creating-m...
He later managed to come up with money from another source to pay them back, but that doesn't erase the fraud that he previously committed.
Shkreli was the just the lowest hanging fruit who a) didn't have the backing of a major pharma company to mask him and b) he also happened to enjoy the attention he get from playing the "villain" character, ironically or not, in an outrage driven (social) media culture.
I also don't think it's possible to separate his identity within pharma nor his politics with the Clinton drama, from his sentencing in this case.
Nearly every single headline has started with "Pharmabro" and judges always consider external factors and personal behaviour during sentencing.
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, he did nothing illegal.
3. Prosecutors, needing to do something got him on fraud charges where he misstated information on an investment but still tripled their money.
4. Shkrelli goes to jail, news and citizenry quelled. Companies still free to continue cornering the market and jacking up prices with impunity.
That's how you get away with this stuff. News made money with the story. Companies made money with their drug hikes, politicians and prosecutors look good because they took action, Shkrelli investors made money. Shkrelli lost, patients lost, taxpayers lost. Rinse, repeat. Systemic corruption.