Monday, March 12, 2018

Martin Shkreli sentenced to seven years.

With six months time served, so he has 6.5 more years to go. The charges are actually layered for different offenses, served concurrently, and the amount of time is centered between lowest and highest possible. Here is a CNBC video explaining the charges (it's boring).

Shkreli is the man who as Chief Executive Officer for Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a life-saving drug that prevents toxoplasmosis by 5,000% from $13.50 a pill to $750.00. But that's not what landed him in jail. Rather, he was convicted of securities fraud for dishonestly using investor's cash when he was working for MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare.

Actually, 13.5 x 5000% = 675

Toxoplasmosis sounds like blood poisoning. It's a parasitic disease that could affect up to half the world's population without them showing any symptoms. It's life-saving drug for HIV patients.

I'm pretty sure his attitude to justify his profiteering was insurance of one form or another pays for it.

The judge also told Shkreli he will have to surrender his $7.4 million in assets that include a Picasso painting and a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that he purchased for $2 million.

Nobody likes this guy because of his snarky, slimy, smirking countenance. Everyone wants to punch him in the nose. Including his lawyer.

His nose is a particularly compelling target. He has the kind of nose like a snake with the nostrils in front so you can see right into the holes when you face him, and his smiling in all the wrong places raises the holes to forward prominence and all that emphasizes unattractively a punchable look that gets on everyone's nerves. Had he used his money on a nose job he'd be less of a target as he smirks.

They had a great deal of difficulty finding jurors. Transcripts of some of the comments made by prospective jurors were released to the public.
Juror 144
Juror: ‘I heard through the news of how the defendant changed the price of a pill by up-selling it. I heard he bought an album from the Wu-Tang Clan for a million dollars.
Judge: ‘The question is, have you heard anything that would affect your ability to decide this case with an open mind? Can you do that?’
Juror: ‘I don’t think I can because he kind of looks like a dick’
Juror 59
Juror: ‘Your Honor, totally he is guilty and in no way can I let him slide out of anything because..
Judge: ‘OK. Is that your attitude toward anyone charged with a crime who has not been proven guilty?”
Juror: ‘It’s my attitude toward his entire demeanor, what he has done to people.’
Judge: ‘All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.’
Juror: ‘And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.
Juror 42
I'd like the chance to hang the guy by his nuts until he dies or else falls off from them still handing there and writhes around on the floor beneath them and dies of blood loss.

Maybe I made up Juror 42.  He trolled the prosecutors of his case and media covering his trial. He photoshopped his face over the face of an attractive female journalist's husband and used it as his own profile picture on Twitter. He invited her to be his date at the inauguration of President Trump. She responded, "I would rather eat my own organs."



The point of the whole story is he cried when the sentence was read and that makes everyone happy.

More details to this story at The Victory Girls.  

2 comments:

edutcher said...

It should happen to Lois Lehner and Eric Holder.

William said...

It sounds like the kind of trial I would avoid if I were on jury duty. He sounds like the kind of guy who can afford expensive lawyers and drag things on for weeks. A lot of those comments sound like they were made by jurors practicing trial dodging.......He does sound like a complete dick, but I caution against extra judicial punishment for assholes. What bothers me is that it is only the capitalists and never the commissars (such as ed mentioned) who ever end up getting their asses handed to them.