Martin Shkreli indictment [pdf]
bloomberglaw.com
bloomberglaw.com
People who say those kinds of things are no better than him. Possibly worse.
The solution to dealing with people like him is to be able to separate them from society or fix the system so it can no longer be exploited so "easily".
He may have hurt a lot of people but it's been through proxy as far as we know. Like Drone strikes, if you can't see the damage you're doing you can't feel guilty about it.
Like Morgan on the Walking Dead. I do believe Martin is a good guy on the wrong path.
It's easy to come together to have shared hatred for this guy and it's hard to realize
I can do better as a human being with empathy towards someone who is broken; sad and probably doesn't understand why people hate him.
He's just being "successful" as it was always defined to him.
Like the Boston Bomber. Getting "Revenge" does not stop the perpetual cycle violence and misbehavior.
The Wolf of Wall Street was a glorification of this type of behavior and a lot of people saw Jordan in that movie as a "Hero"
Interesting analogy, and I'm glad you pointed this out. I was disgusted by Wolf of Wall Street, and even more disgusted by how exalted Belfort became after. So many friends and acquaintances admired and aspired towards what they saw in the film - that was the worst part of it for me. I just can't relate.
Edit: tried to take, because it's still hard to assimilate
It was great inspiration for me to hope that one day I could hope to take a bunch of SSRI drugs and go on a murderous rampage in some random Wall Street hedge fund office!
(I'm mostly kidding)
Boiler Room is also a favorite, which of course is related to Wolf of Wall Street.
Parker said that he resolved after that not to use violence in a film in that way again.
What makes you think he's a good guy? All the evidence points to the contrary, both morally and apparently ethically and legally based on this indictment.
Not sure how you can defend that with this floating around.
I’m definitely the real fucking deal. This
is not a fucking act. I threatened that
fucking guy and his fucking kids because
he fucking took $3 million from me and
he ended up paying me back. He called my
bluff. He said, “You’re not fucking going to
go after me.” [I said] “Yes I motherfucking
will.” I had two guys parked outside of
his house for six months watching his every
fucking move. I can get down. I don’t think
RZA knows that. I think he thinks I’m
some powder puff white guy CEO that’s
got too much money. No. No, no, no.
http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2825/title.martin-shkreli-...
If someone says something and then says "it was a joke", "it was a game", "I was just making a point", that doesn't cancel out the words and their impact - social atmosphere is not an intellectually pristine environment. You will change the atmosphere by yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and once it's done, there is no going back.
Likewise, if we dismiss someone's statement because "it was attention seeking", "they didn't really mean it", "something was misunderstood", "it's just part of the culture", that also doesn't cancel it out.
There are plenty of young, impressionable folks who latch on to ideas unthinkingly because they cannot take anything seriously at their age and level of maturity. But that is not usually the case with a 32-year-old adult like Shkreli, or people in hiphop culture, or people in actual street gangs.
Posturing language exists to make a claim to credibility. It serves a real purpose and is used in an instrumental way, for the purpose of conducting business on the terms of those who use it. The people who exploit this language the best contain in their personality some particular combination of motivation and lack of restraint, enabling their threats to be real to some degree.
Shkreli already displays such a personality among multiple facets. There is no reason to deny him the possibility of simply being a bad human being who is in need of careful monitoring by society.
>>> "Posturing language exists to make a claim to credibility. It serves a real purpose and is used in an instrumental way, for the purpose of conducting business on the terms of those who use it."
>>> "enabling their threats to be real to some degree."
>>> "There is no reason to deny him the possibility of simply being a bad human being who is in need of careful monitoring by society."
Do you realize what you're advocating here? Also, referencing "fire in a crowded theater" is usually looked upon as a canary for those who don't know what they're talking about in regards to free speech
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
Many people nod their heads at this example, but they forget that Holmes was using it to justify the imprisonment of a man for leafletting against the draft. Those who earnestly reference "fire in a crowded theater" would likely stop if they knew its history. If anything, it argues against their point.
I bet the author of the parent comment to yours — like myself — was ignorant of this.
We ought not to punish people for merely being accused of or indicted for a crime. Today it's this asshole, tomorrow it could be you.
Too many people have faith in the judicial system. I wish they would all have to defend themselves, just once, from an unsubstantiated criminal charge.
They would find out, very quickly, just how scary the system can be.
He obviously is somehow obsessed with the Wu-Tang Clan, so I'd guess his life philosophy is a based on a combination of rap gangsters and wall street traders. Both very American. Sorry for oversimplifying.
"I can do better as a human being with empathy towards someone who is broken; sad and probably doesn't understand why people hate him."
If we ever want to stop hatred, if we ever want to stop violence, if we ever want to fundamentally stop the same alienated people who turn to mass violence as their destructive outlets, we have to do it with empathy.
This article is great, and I post it every time the gun control argument comes up after every mass shooting that comes up:
http://markmanson.net/school-shootings
Empathy is the only thing that will save us. It might not save us all, but we have to try.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster
(Assumes cardinal utility, but it still works.)
According to this piece, they feel guilty about it,
Former Drone Pilots Denounce 'Morally Outrageous’ Program | NBC News
The reason there's so much antipathy lately toward white-collar criminals is backlash against judges and prosecutors being sympathetic and lenient toward their fellow clean-cut professionals. That antipathy has only manifested in angry protests and op-eds by the powerless, not the prosecutorial and judicial decisions that Shkreli is in the hands of now.
You could say we're all good guys on some kind of path. The typical third-world warlord is 'just being "successful" as it was always defined to him.'
Everyone should get society's best attempt at impartial justice and a compassionate, non-violent, and restorative treatment. But poor folks like Eric Garner are the ones who've been lacking this justice. Shkreli will probably get probation, a fine, and some community service like the handful of executives offered up after the last financial crisis.
Like most businesspeople he probably adopts the ethos of getting away with what he can within the law, and possibly bending the law where he can get away with it. Google's offshore profit laundering system is an example of a similar approach.
I think it's a mistake to believe this guy is all that different from average in his moral behavior. Most of us never get the opportunity to price pharmaceuticals, but chances are most business owners don't simply give away the product to those who want it.
Differentiating between customers wanting and needing a product is a slippery slope.
In the 'even the worst guy in the world is a good guy once you look past what ever issues result in them being evil' way?
>He's just being "successful" as it was always defined to him.
There are SO many ways I could run with this.
Honestly, I think one could try to make the argument that there are no evil people, just broken ones. Is that what you are trying to say? If not, I find it hard to justify this guy as a good guy otherwise.
>People who say those kinds of things are no better than him. Possibly worse.
If wishing bad things would happen to someone who has done bad things and actually raising the price of AIDS drugs fiftyfold to get rich are anywhere near each other in your moral calculus, I'm terrified of your moral calculus (especially that it may be common.)
But I just imagine that. It's not like I would ever attempt to actually set up such a thing.
Or I imagine that he goes in, and most everyone is kept segregated under extremely high security, with leg shackles and spit masks. He is put into a cell, and his cell mate has a horribly scarred face, but a bright, friendly grin, insomuch as the scars allow it. That night, he wakes up, unable to move, as the razor blade digs into his face. "I used to have that pretty face. Why should you get to keep it?" The next morning, his cell mate is taken away to solitary. A few weeks later, after his wounds heal, he gets a new cell mate. Lo, it's Martin Shkreli! So he flashes a bright, friendly grin as he thinks about his hidden razor blade. Rod Serling narrates us out, talking about the prison where all the other prisoners are copies of you.
We need to imagine prison as a terrible place, where bad people get punished as they rightly deserve, because we need to believe that putting people inside actually somehow serves justice in a useful way.
He won't get beat up in jail because he deserves it, but because he will find no one inside willing to watch his back, and the other inmates will attempt to extort some of that pharma-CEO cash out of him while he is within their reach.
I assure you, I am well aware of the boundary between fact and fiction. I am actually a bit worried that you find words and imagination to be cause for concern. That fear leads to censorship, which is far worse than any of the fantasy blurbs I have ever written.
My real-life hope for Shkreli is that he will be very, very bored for about three to four years (if convicted), and that all the folks he (allegedly) defrauded are able to get some restitution. He doesn't even need to be beaten with meaty thug fists. He just needs to be kept away from productive workers and other people's money. And maybe also the cocaine.
Naked shorting is more of a systemic problem because you can put downward pressure on a stock even when the market is not willing to sell at the price you are pretending to sell at. It also makes it hard to keep track of voting shares and you can see many more votes than actual shares.
In addition to failing to settle a huge short position, he managed to turn $1.12 million into $58,500 in 28 days.
> Contrary to SHKRELI' s representations to Merrill Lynch, MSMB Capital had failed to locate OREX shares to borrow in order to settle MSMB Capital's short sales. As a result, MSMB Capital failed to settle a short position of over 11 million shares of OREX, which Merrill Lynch ultimately closed at a loss of over $7 million. In addition to the losses in the Merrill Lynch account, MSMB Capital suffered over $1 million in other trading losses in approximately February 2011. Based on these trading losses, the value of assets in MSMB Capital's bank and brokerage accounts, not including the OREX losses at Merrill Lynch, declined from more than $1.12 million on or about January 31, 2011 to $58,500 at the end of February 2011.
Shkreli seemed like such an obvious troll in how he defended his price gouging by saying that a CEO's role is to maximize profit for the benefit of shareholders...and yet did so in such an unnecessarily obnoxious way that if he truly were the uber-capitalist, he would know that bragging and drawing attention to what an asshole you are does not achieve the true capitalist goal. I would've bet money that in a year, he would reveal that his act was just a trolling piece of noble performance art to raise awareness of how evil corporations could be.
I'm holding out hope that getting arrested and indicted is still all part of his greater plan, though if so, it's a bit more elaborate than it needs to be, IMHO :)
Same way as anyone else: meritocracy!
http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2825/title.martin-shkreli-...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-17/retrophin-...
PDF of complaint: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=214847399&... from: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2mxis2kze/new-york-southern...
Edit:
The Retrophin complaint also contains more detail about what happend with Merril Lynch:
24. Shkreli also had to contend with Merrill Lynch, which had sued him and MSMB Capital in connection with the Orex Trade (the “Merrill Lynch Arbitration”). Shkreli and MSMB Capital had entered into a settlement agreement with Merrill Lynch that required Shkreli and MSMB Capital to execute confessions of judgment in favor of Merrill Lynch. The confessions of judgment would not be filed if Shkreli and MSMB Capital timely paid the agreedupon settlement amount. Shkreli funded the Merrill Lynch settlement – and avoided the filing of the confessions of judgment – by causing a $900,000 investment in Retrophin equity securities made by MSMB Healthcare to be recharacterized as a “loan,” causing the “loan” to be repaid with interest, and using the “loan” proceeds together with other money taken from Retrophin to pay Merrill Lynch. See generally ¶¶47-58, infra.
Edit: No need to hope anymore. Grand jury started in January and investigations ongoing since 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/media/martin-shkr...
Seems like it's unlikely that you can just FOIA arbitrary data from a CD or hard drive that's been seized during an investigation though.
I love people who actually do this sort of thing, in the same way I love the people that send John Oliver actual 50 pound bags of seed.
FOIA is not used to obtain information contained in the seized material, but information that arose during the investigation. If for some reason, the information created in the investigation contained the actual recording from the album, then you could at least theoretically ask for that information. If not, then there was no information to ask for in the first place.
What can I ask for under the FOIA?
A FOIA request can be made for any agency record. You can also specify the format in which you wish to receive the records (for example, printed or electronic form). The FOIA does not require agencies to create new records or to conduct research, analyze data, or answer questions when responding to requests.
1. It cannot be sold. Given away, yes, but the current owner doesn't seem like someone who will just release the tracks for the world to enjoy for free.
2. It can be stolen back. By Wu-Tang Clan. Or by Bill Murray.
1) "Innocent until proven guilty" and "wow, that timing sure is convenient".
2) LOL. grabs a bucket of popcorn
In this case the Market is Martin Shkreli, and what he's willing to bear is likely everything he owns.
I won't lose any sleep when this guy goes to prison for a long time, but no sense doing nonsense that will only mildly inconvenience him and give potential grounds for appeal.
I might be naive, but I'm under the impression that the book doesn't get thrown at white-collar criminals in the US.
what are the odds he just ends up on probation?
Personally, I think that impression (which is popular) is largely because A) white-collar criminals can typically afford better representation than someone e.g. accused of armed robbery; B) we're much more likely to hear about someone who embezzled $30 million getting off with a slap on the wrist than we are to hear about someone who broke into an empty apartment building getting a similarly light sentence.
You go to prison for getting caught lying during an investigation about white color crime.
It's largely a matter of whether the case is winnable. Then if he acts anything like his public persona suggests, I can't see too many prosecutors going easy on him, if he's abrasive or something? It's entirely possible they give him the Schwartz treatment.
What is the point of putting someone like this in prison? He wouldn't pose a threat to others if he were released immediately. He should be sentenced to spend his time and energy giving back to society.
I really want it to be true...
From Ken: If Reuters was there through independent investigation, then good for them. But if Reuters was there because of a tip from law enforcement, then I'd like to ask a couple of questions....
Who leaked the time and place of the arrest? Was it an FBI agent, a prosecutor, staff, a coordinating local cop? How high up in the government did the decision to leak the arrest go? Did the leak violate the law? Did it violate the defendant's rights? What was the government's purpose in leaking the time and place of the arrest? How does this instance fit into the pattern of which arrests get leaked and which don't? Which nonviolent defendants without records get arrested, and which get summonsed in (or self-surrender through arrangement with their lawyers), and why? What impact does a font-page picture of a defendant in handcuffs have on the jury pool? Is that impact a feature, or a bug, of leaking it? Was the leak intended to inflict extra-judicial humiliation and punishment on the defendant? If the government lies about whether or not it leaked, would you still keep it secret?
https://popehat.com/2015/12/17/an-open-letter-to-reuters-rep...
From what the media reports on him and what I saw on Twitch, seems as though he may have a bit of a Jekyll-Hyde type personality.
He seems sociopathic to me.
All videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gjB1PSXv_oAUSAQ16S0fA/vid...
Example investing lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeKinQ7t-xU&t=58m29s
Edit: Not sure if these include videos/recordings from Twitch.
They want to sweep him under the rug and make everyone believe this is fixing something. This arrest is akin to Martha Stewart getting one of the few indictments from insider trading after events like Enron went down.
It is a show, it is a game, he played it too loudly. He became the public fall guy show piece in my opinion. Going after him for a multi-year SEC investigation right when he made another big price change? Too much attention was brought to drug pricing and controls, and they had something on him.
Update: As has been pointed out, this comes as no surprise since this kind of price gouging is perfectly legal.
This is more of a market failure.
Unintended consequences are a bitch.
He's been arrested for securities fraud. He didn't get in trouble for stealing from the sick and needy, he got in trouble for stealing from the rich and powerful.
It makes you feel good, you feel justice has been served.
But let me give a harsh dose of reality, if he is going to court/jail, shouldn't most of the Wall St. bankers be in jail.
Including every bodies favorite banker John Corzine. http://www.newsweek.com/stalking-jon-corzine-317733
So before you feel good about feeling good, let's not forget that many bankers walk free in society and this is more of click bait story, just saying.
"In September 2015, Shkreli received widespread criticism when Turing obtained the manufacturing license for Daraprim, and raised its price by 5,500 percent (from $13.50 to $750 per tablet)."
Note to self: if you ever take up stealing as a primary business, do it quietly and don't attract attention to your fellows.
In short, he was arrested for securities fraud. This isn't related to his price-hiking antics, rather it involves his work running pharmaceutical companies and lying to investors.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli-idUSKBN0...
I personally believe you should never dehumanize people, no matter how bad they are. Once you write off certain people as non-human it becomes much too easy to commit atrocities.
Both matters pre-date Skreli's national notoriety, because it was his new, post-Retrophin firm that made him "famous" for price gouging.
That this question even has any legitimacy is troubling in and of itself.
Remember, they got Al Capone in the 1930s for tax evasion - not all the other things he was certainly guilty of. Several other gangsters were convicted of things like mail fraud.
If you're guilty, or even just under investigation, don't paint a target on your back. A smart person would know to lay low. Schkreli ... didn't.
I would note that I have no knowledge of the investigation beyond what's being reported (and only a cursory knowledge of that). I could be totally wrong. Maybe these charges were immediately obvious to investigators and it's just taken them almost a year to get their ducks in a row. I'm just theorizing here based on some historical knowledge of famous criminals and how they were eventually brought down (see my comments above on gangsters in the 20s and 30s).
Also, who defends economic libertarianism "for the sole reason that it allows them to pay less taxes, regardless of what's in the public interest"? I know that's a favorite caricature of libertarians that's dear to those who don't agree with libertarianism, but that doesn't mean it's true.
Not that your comment is particularly worth of discussion, but you'd think there would better reasoning behind calling out a broad category of commenters out as being "disgustingly selfish".