Martin Shkreli Convicted Of Securities Fraud

Martin Shkreli Convicted Of Securities Fraud

by Tyler Durden

[Today] the Martin Shkreli jury announced its verdict, and while the ex-pharma exec was found not guilty on 5 of 8 counts, he was also found guilty on 3 of 8 counts, namely count 3: Securities Fraud, count 6: Securities Fraud, and count 8: Conspiracy to Commit Securities Fraud.

As a result, as Bloomberg writes, Shkreli – once dubbed “the most hated man in America” – is now a convicted felon. 

Absent some miracle, Shkreli is now almost certain to go to prison, where he faces as much as 20 years behind bars, although he’s likely to serve much less. It remains to be seen whether the judge in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, allows him to return home, where he’s spent hours each day on social media, or ships him off to jail right away to await sentencing later this year.

As Bloomberg adds, In the end, it was Shkreli’s lies to his investors that cost him his freedom, not his 2015 decision to jack up the price of an anti-parasitic drug.

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[Related background video added by TLB]

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Prosecutors said Shkreli, 34, misled clients about the performance of his failing hedge funds, secretly used their money to start Retrophin, and then took $11 million from the drug-development company to repay them.

And to think there was an easier way out…


If he had worked at a bank, I’m sure he could have neither admitted nor denied guilt and paid a fine with shareholder money.https://twitter.com/megtirrell/status/893543070859489280 


That said, Shkreli was in good spirits during the post-verdict press conference, echoing Trump when he said that “this was a witch hunt of epic proportions” delighted that the Retrophin counts were dismissed, and as to being found guilty on the securities fraud, his simple remark was “maybe they found one or two broomsticks.”

He also jokingly refused to answer questions from CNBC, where, back in 2015, Shkreli gave a disastrous interview that introduced him to the public as the “pharma bro.”

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[Late coverage video added by TLB]

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[..]

During the trial, the prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York presented more than a dozen witnesses, including investors who said they had trouble recovering their money from Shkreli. They painted Shkreli as a conman and a liar, saying he lied about his performance and his assets under management. Jurors were shown what prosecutors said were sham consulting agreements that Shkreli drafted as part of one of his many schemes to pay back some investors. Shkreli’s attorneys sought to prove their case through cross-examination of government witnesses and didn’t call any of their own. Lead Attorney Brafman argued that Shkreli was an eccentric genius whose investors ultimately made millions of dollars – even if it took them years to recover their money. He also blamed some of Shkreli’s shady behavior on his strange behavior in what the New York Times once referred to as the “born this way” defense.

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TLB thanks Tyler Durden and ZeroHedge for this coverage.

[Some content and video coverage was edited and updated by TLB]

 Follow TLB on Twitter @thetlbproject

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