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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

20 years prison seem ridiculously high in the light of the fact that most of the investors gained money instead of loosing money. He might have abused or misused invested money but in the end they benefited from it, if I understood the news stories correctly.

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Just because you settle and repay people with OTHER money, doesn't mean that you didn't commit fraud prior to paying them with _unrelated funds_.

That's not how things work. The man committed fraud, entering into another scheme - got lucky - enough to pay off the previous people he jilted. That does not mean the crimes committed prior to the pharma scheme should be ignored.

Other reports indicate that Shkreli only started returning money to MSMB investors AFTER the SEC began investigating.

I think it is important to show our financial laws have real teeth. A hard sentence acts as a warning to others.

This punishment looks unusual, though. Shkreli called too much attention towards these unethical business model, but there are more people doing it. If he's the only one convicted that harshly, it just sends a signal that you can do it, but with more discretion.

Whether or not they benefitted from his actions, he still defrauded them, essentially. The ends should never justify the means. Our legal should not take that into account when assessing penalties.

There's very few crimes in my mind that would justify 20 years in prison and fraud definitely isn't one of them

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