Friday, March 9, 2018

One down, Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine to Go

Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud.

The obvious follow-up question is, "What about the other guys?"

People like Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Sloan, Jamie Dimon, Brian Moynihan, etc.
A federal judge on Friday sentenced Martin Shkreli, the notorious former hedge fund manager, to seven years in prison for defrauding his investors of $10 million.

In imposing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto roughly split the difference between the 15 years prosecutors asked for and the up to 18 months sought by Shkreli’s defense team. Shkreli, 34, who delivered a tearful speech to Matsumoto apologizing for his conduct and pleading for leniency, did not react to the sentence.

A complicated picture of Shkreli emerged from the trial, said Matsumoto, who said the case had given her a case of insomnia. “It is more than clear that Mr. Shkreli is a gifted individual with a passion for science,” she said. But his crimes are serious and it is important to send a message that such fraud should be not tolerated, she said. “White collar offenders like Mr. Shkreli use their intelligence and acumen to elude detection,” she said.

Shkreli, best known for raising the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent when he was chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, was convicted last August of defrauding the investors in his hedge funds, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare. Shkreli lied to obtain investors’ money and then didn’t tell them when he made a bad stock bet that led to massive losses, prosecutors argued. Instead, they said, he raised more money to pay off other investors, or took money and stock from Retrophin, a drug company he founded.
We need to throw a whole bunch more people in jail, but it ain't gonna happen.

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