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> Prosecutors argued that Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and the pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. Shkreli told investors
by swang 9y ago
> Prosecutors argued that Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and the pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. Shkreli told investors he graduated from Columbia University, that his hedge fund was large and profitable, and that he had hired an auditor, they said. These were all lies, according to prosecutors.
yeah seems like a great dude...
- Barrin92 9y ago"but he had a nice twitch stream" is just about the most absurd defense of someone involved in large scale corporate fraud I have witnessed in a long time
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hitekker 9y agoWhen the defense gets absurd, I go looking for the defender's agenda. In this case, the original commenter wants to tar all centralized institutions as corrupt (congress, news, etc). His strategy is to paint Shrekli in the best possible light, to make him a martyr for the cause. He even paints Shrekli as another Snowden: > It exposes it. Not quite as monumental, but a Snowden moment. Remember, congress did squat about the price gouging, because that's what they get paid to do.
- FireBeyond 9y agoRight. Ted Bundy was the picture of charisma, and charm, personality.
- lucaspm98 9y agoTo be fair, the quote itself says "according to prosecutors" so this is only one side of the story.
- eli 9y agoWell, 12 jurors agreed.
- lucaspm98 9y agoThey agreed he committed a crime not that he wasn't a "great dude." I'm not saying he is, just that this is using a claim without any evidence or response to paint a picture of his whole life.
- throwaway76543 9y agoThey mostly didn't agree with the prosecution. He's been convicted on only 3 of the 8 counts.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kbenson 9y agoInterestingly, his fraud seems to fall into two categories. Lying about his fund's bonafides and status on one side, and working hard to make sure those same investors got what they were expecting by founding a company, making it successful and paying them out from the profits. It sounds like he definitely lied to investors, but he apparently didn't intend to steal their money, and took pains to make sure he did not cost them money in the end. Apparently most investors in the fund that lost all it's money ended up close to tripling their investment after he worked to replace the lost money in the end. That leaves me thinking that "up to 20 years" is a bit harsh given the facts. Hopefully the judge will take that into consideration and give him a more lenient sentence.
- emerongi 9y agoA lot of people who do bad things don't intend to do bad things. He got lucky he didn't fuck up like everyone else who thinks that way. It doesn't make him any better though, on a bad day he could've ended like the rest of them and then everyone would be screaming how awful Shkreli is.
- Sangermaine 9y agoAre you kidding? He's human garbage, let him rot. It's astounding how people are being taken in by this con man.
- kbenson 9y agoOkay, I'll bite. Why do you think he's human garbage? You felt strongly enough to reply, maybe you can muster the effort to explain why you think that?
- wfunction 9y ago> Okay, I'll bite. Why do you think he's human garbage. Obtaining a license just to increase a drug's price from $13.50 to $750 for no apparent reason other than greed isn't enough for you?
- Clubber 9y agoAlso, according to the NYT article, all investors tripled their money. "The investors who invested all made money — by the defense’s tally, more than triple what they invested."
- sigmar 9y agoIt's not fraud if investors make money? Someone better tell Madoff that he's getting out.
- cowsandmilk 9y agoSo, it is okay to lie to investors, as long as you eventually pull a success off? And you make those investors you were lying to money by committing fraud on the investors in your new company (Retrophin), so they make money, but not as much they would have if you weren't secretly taking profits to pay off the investors you previously defrauded?
- manquer 9y agoWhile I don't agree to what shkreli did, founders / promoters lie all time .
- huac 9y agoI mean, everybody came out okay - Shkreli really made his investors a lot of money! Yeah, he lied, but he did some incredible work: typical fraudsters take your money and run - he doesn't fit that mold. Honestly, the issue was that he's an utter asshole, including to his investors. Investors are willing to put with a lot if you triple their money, but Shkreli managed to cross that line. That made him an easy target for the prescription drugs investigation and media circus.
- Harimwakairi 9y ago> ...he did some incredible work... Can you elaborate on this?
- yellowstuff 9y agoHe pivoted from running a hedge fund worth -33 cents to creating a pharmaceutical company currently worth $800 million.
- rifung 9y ago> I mean, everybody came out okay - Shkreli really made his investors a lot of money! Yeah, he lied, but he did some incredible work: typical fraudsters take your money and run - he doesn't fit that mold. I think it's nice everyone came out okay, besides Shkreli in this case I guess. I still think what he did was wrong though because if you don't punish that kind of behavior, then you're encouraging people to do things that are wrong in the hopes they will succeed, and it won't always work out as it happened to do so here.
- blahblah3 9y agoJust because his investors made money doesn't excuse him. Suppose you lent 10,000 to a friend and the friend promised to return it within a year. A year later, your friend doesn't pay you back and makes a bunch of excuses. Instead, he takes the 5,000 he has left to the casino, gambles it on the roulette wheel and by luck manages to turn that into 30,000 and pays you back 1.5 years later. I don't think you would be happy with that situation...
- Clubber 9y agoI never said he was a great dude, but the media's portal of him is inaccurate (shocker).
- monksy 9y agoSounds like the standard playbook for startups. Oh you wanted a product, you should be happy with the mvp.
- fastball 9y agoThe epitome of "fake it 'til you make it"?