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Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

If you rob a bank and then go to a casino and bet it all on 'Black', you're not absolved of that original crime if Black hits and you pay back the bank.

Shkreli lied to his investors (he claimed he had $55M under management when it never surpassed $6M), produced false financial statements, told prospective investors that his original investors had doubled their money (when they actually lost everything), raided the fund's money for personal expenses, backdated financial statements to defraud banks for new debt.... this is all laid out in the indictment: https://www.scribd.com/doc/293530336/1-main

If you think that financial criminals should face repercussions, Shkreli belongs in jail. Others surely deserve jail as well, but 'fairness' isn't letting Shkreli off, it's punishing the rest of them too.

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What about the fact that Holmes actually lost money for investors and got no jail time. While martin lost no money but got 7 years of jail time. Where is the fairness? I am surprised by the stupidity I view on this forum, which is suppose to be frequented by people working in top tech.

Maybe cool it on the insults if your facts aren't right.

> What about the fact that Holmes actually lost money for investors and got no jail time. While martin lost no money but got 7 years of jail time.

A few things about this point.

1. Shkreli lost 100% of his original investors' money. He then lied to them all and told them that he doubled it. He then created fake financial statements that he used to raise new money, lying to new investors as well. He also embezzled his hedge fund's money to buy himself Picassos and Wu-Tang albums. After all of that, he undertook a very risky bet that paid off, at which time he paid back his original investors, again lying about what happened.

2. Holmes didn't "get no jail time" since the SEC can't arrest or convict people. They're a civil institution that can only apply civil remedies, like fines and management bans. The Department of Justice is also investigating Theranos and Holmes, it remains to be seen if they will issue criminal indictments. In any case, Holmes is cooperating and had agreed to settle.

3. Shkreli had the chance to settle, plead guilty, admit wrong-doing and avoid jail time. Instead he chose to have a jury trial, where 12 of his peers found him guilty of serious financial crimes that would result in 7 years in prison.

> 1. Shkreli lost 100% of his original investors' money.

Source? I hadn't heard that.

http://fortune.com/2017/08/05/why-martin-shkreli-is-guilty-w...

From the SEC's original complaint:

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2015/comp-pr2015-2...

> 44. On March 2, 2011 , Shkreli stated in e-mails to MSMB investors that "MSMB returned +4.24% in February 2011 " and had "returned +41.71 % since inception on 11/1/2009." In fact, by the end of February 2011, MSMB had virtually no assets. MSMB had suffered over $7 million in losses in its account at Executing Broker as the result of its trading in Company A on February 1, 2011. Even setting aside the losses at Executing Broker, the net asset value of MSMB's prime brokerage account and the cash balance in its bank account amounted to only about $58,500.

> 45. Shkreli continued to send "performance estimates" until September 2012, when he informed the limited partners that through June 2012, MSMB had "returned +79.49% net of fees since inception on 11 /1/2009." At the end of June 2012, however, MSMB had no assets in its prime brokerage account or its bank account.

He lost 100% of his investors' money and was creating fake financial statements to lie to them about his massive losses.

Eventually, he used other people's money and huge gambles to recoup these losses. He also entered into fraudulent 'consulting agreements' with disgruntled investors from his hedge fund to make them whole using a different company's assets, essentially stealing from that company's shareholders.

All of this is incredibly illegal.

Agreed its illegal and could have gone to zero. His investors could easily have lost all their money, but they didn't. Theranos investors did.

I guess its like Bernie Madoff's investors got most of their money back, but Citigroup investors lost 90%.

What about the fact, that he paid from his own shareholding of the company, and the company investors didn't end up paying for it. The bigger point every one is missing is, he got a 800% increase from the average sentence. That IS NOT FAIR!!

He repaid investors in his hedge fund with millions of dollars in fraudulent consulting contracts from a different company that they weren't investors in. This is a breach of fiduciary duty at minimum and likely criminal fraud. He also repeatedly produced false financial statements to cover up his massive losses.

He was convicted by a jury of his peers on Federal charges and was sentenced using the Federal Sentencing Guidelines which are universal across all cases. Shouting in all caps doesn't make something unfair...

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