DOJ: We Want Martin Shkreli’s Enigma Machine, Wu-Tang Album, and $7.3M
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Even if you think the tweet about Hillary Clinton's hair was illegal harassment or instigation or whatever, surely the state should be required to prove that! Apparently if you have been convicted of some (completely unrelated) crime, you lose all due process rights and in the future the state can punish you arbitrarily much with no trial at all.
For certain cases, you don't have a right to trial by jury, such as bail revocation. And often it is decided on a preponderance of the evidence standard.
I don't know the specifics of bail revocation case law, but there are worse known cases, like contempt of court. Martin Armstrong was held for years, the All Writs act is being use as an anti-encryption measure, etc.
The way this man has been treated is a disgrace to our judicial system and society.
But that’s the problem. You can’t really have rule of law and increase someone’s punishment because, well, they’re an asshole. The amount of legally-defined harm he caused is trivial. You can argue they’re putting every possible punishment they can on top because he was a dick who raised the price of drugs and is seemingly 4Chan incarnate.
(But oh man is that little pharma bro manlet so punchable. So, so punchable.)
His punishment is not even known yet, the sentencing is not due for another seven weeks.
Perhaps you meant it more broadly, then where do you see injustice being done? Is the evidence made up? Was the jury rigged or unduly influenced? Was he deprived of legal counsel?
But that’s a bit of a problem. You get one high-profile conviction of this rent-seeking troll, and not as much attention towards more systemically harmful actors. So, a bit of a “finite legal resources” model and a bit of “bread and circus”.
But it’s a half-argued argument. I’m glad to see financial engineering narcissists get karmic Justice.
But in the case of people being uncooperative and showing no remorse the system was designed to be able to allow the judge to give them the maximum sentence. He did everything possible to ensure that outcome.
The thing is, Shkreli is a provocateur. He says and does things to elicit a reaction from people. He very clearly said one too many stupid things and as a result of it, they are throwing the book at him VERY hard here.
Whereas with someone else in his position, there probably would have been a quiet settlement for time served with little to no fines (as there are no real damages that I can see) there's literally no way that they can do that here. There are WAY too many eyes on this case for them to cut him a deal even if such a deal is de rigueur and that is 100% Shkreli's fault. He pushed and he pushed and he pushed till he built up so much bad karma that he literally ended up in jail. Even when he does things that, when you look into them REALLY deeply are perhaps good (like the Epi-Pen fiasco), he comes off 100% as an arrogant asshole who deserves condemnation anyway.
The word you're looking for is "troll."
I'd like to expand on my previous response: Saying things you don't believe for no better reason than that you enjoy pissing people off is loathsome. Whether or not he deserves jail time, he's still an asshole, and "provocateur" seems unnecessarily euphemistic.
Im all for the removal of politics but can you remove the dumb stuff at the same time. That would be cool.
I would hate to live in a system that worked by the letter and just said "Well, can't touch him, he didn't TECHNICALLY break any laws...."
Like what if you had a stalker who wasn't TECHNICALLY violating any of the terms of his restraining order but was doing everything in their power to make your miserable anyway? Is it a disgrace for the law to find a way to stick it to them?
If you don't like the system, we have something called legislature to change it.
Rules have to mean something. Retroactively changing the rules because you don't like the outcome is like having no rules at all.
If you don't uphold the civil rights of the loathsome, then those protections won't be there to protect the righteous.
It's worth remembering that while Shkrelli is super unlikeable, at various points in history, so were Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, etc.
They were jailed because the system was broken. And it would be better if the system was NOT broken.
In absolute terms, it was bad that those people were jailed, but with respect to the system, it was good that those people were jailed because it served to highlight the clear disconnect between the laws and what was right and wrong to society. It's unrealistic to expect institutions to make changes without going through the process. If Rosa Parks never went to jail there would have never been the protests which brought about change.
If you think the actions by Shkreli should have strong punishment, it's a bad thing if Shkreli gets the book thrown at him artificially. You're not setting precedent and you're not fixing the system. Someone in the future will do something similar and, depending on the court, they'll get off with a slap on the wrist. You should root for things to be done by the book so that everyone can realize, "hey, this book sucks!" and it gets changed through legislation.
But we do live in that system. That's how Google and Apple pay no taxes.
Your mindset is terrifying.
This comment reminds me of something Popehat wrote about Aaron Swartz:
> In short, Swartz's team seemed to view this as an unjust and broken application of a system to an undeserving man, not recognizing that the system is rigged and unjust and broken from the start. That's common among smart, educated, fortunate people. As I have discussed before, my fortunate clients are the most outraged at how they are treated by the criminal justice system, and most prone to seeing conspiracies and vendettas, because they are new to it — they have not questioned the premise that the system's goal is justice. My clients who have lived difficult lives in hard neighborhoods don't see a conspiracy; they recognize incompetence and brutal indifference and injustice as features, not bugs.
https://www.popehat.com/2014/08/07/the-allure-of-unquestione...
But there are an awful lot of other crooks out there taking advantage of as many or more people, and often getting away with it with very little consequence.
I may not like him, but being dislikable shouldn't have that much effect on punishment.
Can you explain why?
If you think it's immoral for the profit motive to be in play when it comes to healthcare, then fine. But to single him out like he's some kind of extreme amoral outlier or something seems really unfair.
Most people got the drug for free or at an extreme discount, and he spent all the profits on drug research. What he did is pretty much how the entire pharmaceutical industry works.
And most of the news organizations bought it hook, line and sinker (ignorantly or willingly) because it sold advertisements.
I do hope he gets some sort of mistrial eventually. What happened is not justice, it's mob vengeance with biased judges and prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves. This reminds me so much of the Aaron Swartz "trial".
> "We will vigorously oppose the government motion," Shkreli’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said in an email. "Our position is clear. None of the investors lost any money and Martin did not personally benefit from any of the counts of conviction. Accordingly, forfeiture of any assets is not an appropriate remedy."
Anyone here know if this position is legitimate?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-17/martin-sh...
In short his hedge fund tanked, he started some new companies, retrospectively backdated the shareholding of the new company to make his loss making investors from the previous failure shareholders, that company ended up being successful and floated, those investors made a lot of money.
But everything about what he did to make that possible is entirely dodgy/illegal.
So they don't actually care about compensation, they just have the right and want him to bleed.
The US government is attempting to make an example out of Shkreli.
OTOH, that doesn't actually seem likely to be true.
Anyone go to jail at Equifax? Most definitely not, and that’s upended the credit system.
I wouldn't put it past the credit industry to find a way to profit at further cost to consumers.
Ayup. If they don't hang him, they might have to go after somebody actually important in the pharmaceutical industry.
> It didn't help that he couldn't just let his lawyer handle everything.
Shkreli seems to be just absolutely, preternaturally unable to shut the fuck up.
The purpose of the law is to discourage situations that were deemed likely to yield harm, regardless of whether the victims lucked out this particular time.
Consider a drunk cab driver for example. No one is hurt, and the passenger is home in one piece. Still should be a crime, no?
Investors in Retrophin made a lot money. They would have made more if Shkreli had not committed fraud. His lawyer’s argument is basically that the investors made money and it doesn’t matter that Shkreli used the company as his piggy bank, issuing shares, thus diluting investors, and writing checks to settle his debts and make whole the investors in his previous hedge fund.
There were victims. Victims who made a lot of money, but would have made more if Shkreli hadn’t committed fraud.
The house was insured, but the owner doesn't claim insurance either.
Despite all this. No insurance scam and no harm to anybody. But still the guy setting fire to his own home will considered a arsonist.
If you knock over a liquor store and the register is empty, seems to me its still a crime even if you didn't make off with anything.
Yes, this is a better analogy.
> Still seems perfectly convictable to me.
The question, though, isn't whether he should go to jail; I think he should. It's whether he should lose his assets to the government (I think he shouldn't).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__qN9Qt3Hc
I only became familiar with Martin Shkreli's story a only few days ago, yet it has become my main example that I'll point out when talking about:
- corrupt media and fake news
- corrupt populist people in power
- political witch hunts
- public that is trivial to mislead
You can easily verify the claims made by the media and the claims made by him and see exactly who is right and who is wrong, there is no moral grey area.
Couldn't he do us a solid and just release it online before the government takes it?
One of the reason Wu Tang et al. released these limited edition albums was they hoped they would be bought by art museums or so, in this case ended up with private collector.
While you wouldn't be bound by any agreements that Shkreli had w/ Wu-Tang Clan, you would still be in violation of copyright laws if you released it publicly (and the government could, potentially, put stipulations on its sale if they wanted).
In addition, if you owned the only existing copy, I think it would be pretty easy to prove that it was you who released it.
Contractually, the purchaser is not allowed to release it "commercially" which means they could release it for free. It has nothing to do with any copyright laws.
>"There are strict limitations on the distribution of the 31-track double album, with a statement from the band reading: "It can be exhibited publicly and it can be given away for free. But it cannot be commercialised as a conventional album release until 2103"[1]
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/m...
Someone who buys it from a government auction is not bound by any contract signed by the original purchaser. They are still bound by copyright law, although the copyright holder (presumably Wu-Tang Clan) could (and likely would) allow them to exhibit it or give it away.
[1] - http://www.musictimes.com/articles/30821/20150306/wu-tang-cl...
The problem is he is not the only one like this. In an interview with Vice he goes over the fact that what he did is common practice[0]. Until there is some way to stop this price gauging there will be more people like him.