8 ms·

I disagree. I think it will be a major factor at sentencing. First the fact that he did give them their money (with a significant return on it) back to the pe

I disagree. I think it will be a major factor at sentencing. First the fact that he did give them their money (with a significant return on it) back to the people well before the government got involved (meaning it wasn't a PR show) to me means there was never any intent for them to actually lose money. I think the judge will see it the same way. Because if that weren't true, he would never have repatriated the money back to pay them out. He would have just said "oops, I lost it" and continued about his regular business. As much as I dislike the guy, I do believe he didn't want to rip the people off, he wanted to try to salvage what he could to make himself look good get them their money. He just chose a deceptive, illegal manner in which to do it. Also, harm/damage is a big consideration in sentencing. He broke the law, yes. But usually a violation of the law in this regard results in substantial losses. Because it did not here, the only damage is his violation of his contractual obligation to provide money back to those who said they wanted to cash out. By holding the money, he deprived them of their rightful property as per the contract they signed when they invested with him. And considering they would have a real hard time beating his returns, proving any sort of tort injury is essentially impossible. This leaves only the statutory violation, meaning he amazingly didn't necessarily harm anyone or their property but rather just broke the law. Given the lack of injury to the victims of his crime, I think he's likely to see a very light sentence.

artemisyna 9y ago
If you don't mine me asking, are you actually a lawyer or are you just speculating?
- turc1656 9y ago
  Definitely not a lawyer. Total speculation on my part. I am just trying to come to some sort of logical conclusion about how the judge might approach sentencing, using my limiting knowledge of law.
downandout 9y ago
Let me start by saying that what you are saying probably should be the way it plays out in this case. Everyone seems to have made money. I was just stating how it actually plays out in the vast majority of federal cases, and will likely play out here. In this case, because of the amount involved, the guidelines will call for a substantial prison sentence (well over 5 years). There is actually a loss table (again, we're talking about the "intended loss") that determines a certain number of points for the loss [1] (plus 7 points for the "base offense level"), and that number of points is then used with the sentencing table [2] to determine the sentence. The judge is of course free to depart up or down from the guideline sentence, but the sentencing range determined by those tables will be the starting point. The odds that he will receive no prison time at all after having gone to trial and lost are effectively zero. The judge will likely cut him some kind of break because nobody actually lost anything - his lawyers will argue that he showed remorse after the fact by eventually making his victims whole - but that will have a minor effect at best. My best guess, having watched many of these things play out, is 4-6 years. [1] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-chapter-2-c#2b11 https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-... [2] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-chapter-5 https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-...
- lomnakkus 9y ago
  EDIT: OK, nevermind, I guess.
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    >Perhaps that makes me a bad person. Not bad, merely ignorant. You're celebrating the incarceration of someone you presumably know very little about, all while searching for "true" victims ("perhaps the public?") to fuel your indignation.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      I feel great. Shrekeli's a terrible person and I'm comfortable with him being held to account for his crimes.
      - Overtonwindow 9y ago
        Perhaps society doing a societal good. A shot across the bow when organs of state have failed them.
        cm2187 9y ago
        Like Al Capone going to jail for tax fraud.
        Overtonwindow 9y ago
        Didn't he commit tax fraud, though? There was no stretch of the law was there?
        cm2187 9y ago
        There wasn't but he was hit hard for tax fraud really to punish him for his other crimes.
      - 9y ago
icantdrive55 9y ago
If he gets any time it will be for the Drug pricing scandal. So many CEO's/executives break so many laws. This guy just embarrassed all of the cogs in the game. He was an easy target for lazy federal workers. Plus--I imagine people around him gave up information freely? He will be sentenced like O.J was in Las Vegas. Meaning--not for the Las Vegas crime, but the LA crime. On a side note, I always felt Marty needs some lovin. He just screamed I need a relationship. All the reaching out a social media. All the coy looks. The little boy lost/missuderstood/lonely boy in the hoodie? I hope when he gets out, some patriotic lady takes care of him. I hope he doesn't need to pay, and it's a honest relationship. I feel his ego will still be warped though? "But I'm special? I deserve a model type?" There's usually a psychological reason men go to great lengths to make money. It's not just for financial security.
lend000 9y ago
> Also, harm/damage is a big consideration in sentencing. That's how it should be. However, if that were really the case, poor Ross wouldn't be serving two life sentences.
markdown 9y ago
> As much as I dislike the guy, I do believe he didn't want to rip the people of Not these rich people, no. He had no qualms about ripping off regular people with his other business though.
- fastball 9y ago
  I think turc1656 meant to say "he didn't want to defraud the people".
samsonasu 9y ago
I'm pretty sure the "no harm no foul" defense doesn't hold water in a fraud case. A Ponzi scheme is illegal the entire time (because it's fraudulent) even though the early investors receive returns.
- fastball 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure it does. A ponzi scheme absolutely does harm people through fraud, namely everyone left holding the potato. Sure, it doesn't harm everyone involved, but many people are harmed because of fraud. In Shkreli's case, he didn't actually harm anyone through fraud, because although he committed fraud, he got them their money back through entirely legal, non-fraudulent means.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Getting money back is just one point in the probabilistic set of possible outcomes. Investment is all about risk, therefore you really cannot ignore that part. Completely over the top illustrative example: you give me money for ten years to invest in real estate, because your investment portfolio is lacking in that sector. I blow it all on cocaine and hookers, then when the money is due I get nervous, buy lottery tickets and win. You get your money back, with a nice profit attached in the upper parts of what could be expected by a real estate investment. Was I a faithful manager of your money? Hell no! If you wanted lottery tickets you would have bought them yourself.
    - fastball 9y ago
      Yeah, except Shkreli's handling of the HF money was not fraudulent (he didn't blow people's money on cocaine and hookers, or blow it on anything really, the hedge fund just did poorly).
      - usrusr 9y ago
        A coverup is a coverup. If he cannot stand up to his investments doing poorly he has no place in the institutional investment business. If you fake (or hustle) good results to lure in the next batch of investors, yes, that is fraud. It would be an entirely different case if he would have let his funds tank but compensated the losses of his investors with large put nominally unrelated personal donations (assuming that the investors are the actual owners of the money invested, not some middlemen fiduciaries). The illustrative purpose of my example was not how bad cocaine is, it was how bad being deceptive about the nature of an investment could be even when it turns out to be successful.
cm2187 9y ago
Most ponzi schemes and unauthorised trading start with someone trying to make up for a loss they made and hoping they will fix things and everyone will be made up. That doesn't make it less serious. It may look surprising given the hatred of bankers here, but it's a profession based on honesty. A guy got banned from the city in London for regularly frauding on his train tickets.
- babaganoosh223 9y ago
  He didn't get convicted of the ponzi scheme charge though. So the way he paid back investors is considered legit.
- EdgarVerona 9y ago
  Yes, this is why - regardless of the outcome - he needed to be charged. People shouldn't be able to think they can get away with a thought process that equates to "I can defraud people and if my plan doesn't work out I'll find some other way to make it right." Fraud is fraud, and if you make it "right" via some other channel you haven't really made it right. You've gotten lucky and made your fraud look better.
snsr 9y ago
> As much as I dislike the guy, I do believe he didn't want to rip the people off, he wanted to try to salvage what he could to make himself look good get them their money. I think his behavior in both this case and in his "pharmaceutical" endeavor clearly demonstrate his willingness to rip people off.

artemisyna 9y ago

If you don't mine me asking, are you actually a lawyer or are you just speculating?

turc1656 9y ago
Definitely not a lawyer. Total speculation on my part. I am just trying to come to some sort of logical conclusion about how the judge might approach sentencing, using my limiting knowledge of law.

downandout 9y ago

Let me start by saying that what you are saying probably should be the way it plays out in this case. Everyone seems to have made money. I was just stating how it actually plays out in the vast majority of federal cases, and will likely play out here. In this case, because of the amount involved, the guidelines will call for a substantial prison sentence (well over 5 years). There is actually a loss table (again, we're talking about the "intended loss") that determines a certain number of points for the loss [1] (plus 7 points for the "base offense level"), and that number of points is then used with the sentencing table [2] to determine the sentence. The judge is of course free to depart up or down from the guideline sentence, but the sentencing range determined by those tables will be the starting point. The odds that he will receive no prison time at all after having gone to trial and lost are effectively zero. The judge will likely cut him some kind of break because nobody actually lost anything - his lawyers will argue that he showed remorse after the fact by eventually making his victims whole - but that will have a minor effect at best. My best guess, having watched many of these things play out, is 4-6 years. [1] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-chapter-2-c#2b11 https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-... [2] https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-chapter-5 https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual/2016-...

lomnakkus 9y ago
EDIT: OK, nevermind, I guess.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  >Perhaps that makes me a bad person. Not bad, merely ignorant. You're celebrating the incarceration of someone you presumably know very little about, all while searching for "true" victims ("perhaps the public?") to fuel your indignation.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    I feel great. Shrekeli's a terrible person and I'm comfortable with him being held to account for his crimes.
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
      Perhaps society doing a societal good. A shot across the bow when organs of state have failed them.
      - cm2187 9y ago
        Like Al Capone going to jail for tax fraud.
        Overtonwindow 9y ago
        Didn't he commit tax fraud, though? There was no stretch of the law was there?
        cm2187 9y ago
        There wasn't but he was hit hard for tax fraud really to punish him for his other crimes.
    - 9y ago

icantdrive55 9y ago

If he gets any time it will be for the Drug pricing scandal. So many CEO's/executives break so many laws. This guy just embarrassed all of the cogs in the game. He was an easy target for lazy federal workers. Plus--I imagine people around him gave up information freely? He will be sentenced like O.J was in Las Vegas. Meaning--not for the Las Vegas crime, but the LA crime. On a side note, I always felt Marty needs some lovin. He just screamed I need a relationship. All the reaching out a social media. All the coy looks. The little boy lost/missuderstood/lonely boy in the hoodie? I hope when he gets out, some patriotic lady takes care of him. I hope he doesn't need to pay, and it's a honest relationship. I feel his ego will still be warped though? "But I'm special? I deserve a model type?" There's usually a psychological reason men go to great lengths to make money. It's not just for financial security.

lend000 9y ago

> Also, harm/damage is a big consideration in sentencing. That's how it should be. However, if that were really the case, poor Ross wouldn't be serving two life sentences.

markdown 9y ago

> As much as I dislike the guy, I do believe he didn't want to rip the people of Not these rich people, no. He had no qualms about ripping off regular people with his other business though.

fastball 9y ago
I think turc1656 meant to say "he didn't want to defraud the people".

samsonasu 9y ago

I'm pretty sure the "no harm no foul" defense doesn't hold water in a fraud case. A Ponzi scheme is illegal the entire time (because it's fraudulent) even though the early investors receive returns.

fastball 9y ago
I'm pretty sure it does. A ponzi scheme absolutely does harm people through fraud, namely everyone left holding the potato. Sure, it doesn't harm everyone involved, but many people are harmed because of fraud. In Shkreli's case, he didn't actually harm anyone through fraud, because although he committed fraud, he got them their money back through entirely legal, non-fraudulent means.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Getting money back is just one point in the probabilistic set of possible outcomes. Investment is all about risk, therefore you really cannot ignore that part. Completely over the top illustrative example: you give me money for ten years to invest in real estate, because your investment portfolio is lacking in that sector. I blow it all on cocaine and hookers, then when the money is due I get nervous, buy lottery tickets and win. You get your money back, with a nice profit attached in the upper parts of what could be expected by a real estate investment. Was I a faithful manager of your money? Hell no! If you wanted lottery tickets you would have bought them yourself.
  - fastball 9y ago
    Yeah, except Shkreli's handling of the HF money was not fraudulent (he didn't blow people's money on cocaine and hookers, or blow it on anything really, the hedge fund just did poorly).
    - usrusr 9y ago
      A coverup is a coverup. If he cannot stand up to his investments doing poorly he has no place in the institutional investment business. If you fake (or hustle) good results to lure in the next batch of investors, yes, that is fraud. It would be an entirely different case if he would have let his funds tank but compensated the losses of his investors with large put nominally unrelated personal donations (assuming that the investors are the actual owners of the money invested, not some middlemen fiduciaries). The illustrative purpose of my example was not how bad cocaine is, it was how bad being deceptive about the nature of an investment could be even when it turns out to be successful.

cm2187 9y ago

Most ponzi schemes and unauthorised trading start with someone trying to make up for a loss they made and hoping they will fix things and everyone will be made up. That doesn't make it less serious. It may look surprising given the hatred of bankers here, but it's a profession based on honesty. A guy got banned from the city in London for regularly frauding on his train tickets.

babaganoosh223 9y ago
He didn't get convicted of the ponzi scheme charge though. So the way he paid back investors is considered legit.
EdgarVerona 9y ago
Yes, this is why - regardless of the outcome - he needed to be charged. People shouldn't be able to think they can get away with a thought process that equates to "I can defraud people and if my plan doesn't work out I'll find some other way to make it right." Fraud is fraud, and if you make it "right" via some other channel you haven't really made it right. You've gotten lucky and made your fraud look better.

snsr 9y ago

> As much as I dislike the guy, I do believe he didn't want to rip the people off, he wanted to try to salvage what he could to make himself look good get them their money. I think his behavior in both this case and in his "pharmaceutical" endeavor clearly demonstrate his willingness to rip people off.