Facebook posts put Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli in prison as a danger to society Martin Shkreli, the obnoxious smirking hedge fund manager nicknamed Pharma Bro, is going to jail after a series of Facebook posts convinced a judge that he's a menace to society. No, he wasn't extolling the joys of raising prices on AIDS drugs by 5,000 per cent, or talking about his conviction last month for multiple counts of …
"Apart from Trump, Assange and Farage ..."
Yes yes, insert despised political figure here, we get it.
But you don't. What's going on here is we're verbally ripping apart a fellow human who righteously deserves to be so ripped. We worked out the method a few hundred thousand years ago, living in small tribes of under 150. Back then tho, it was up close and personal.
This cyber-shaming thing seems, I don't know, kinda tame. Yeah okay, millions are doing it, but so what? HE probably could not give a fig about that, as long as he has at least some fans.
I suppose being modren and all, we must allow that judge to be our surrogate in this matter. Sigh.
There are plenty who have done worse and got away with it. And for far less reward. Shkreli's great sin, is to be publically unapologetic and say if people didn't like what he did then they should make it illegal. He doesn't understand the vital role that hypocrisy plays in wrong-doing.
From the moment he smiled on camera and said he didn't care, it was inevitable he'd be put away for something and no jury in the land would acquit him. You can care about money more than people all you like... but you shouldn't say it!
And I am not that man either.
He looks (and sounds) like a real poster boy for the "I'm so entitled, taxes are for the little people" sub 1% of US society that he so deserves a good slap.
But remember, just because others like him don't come across as obvious Aholes does not mean they aren't even bigger ones.
They are just quieter about it.
Yeah I think if he'd made that apology immediately the judge would have left him out on bail, but when he had that "come at me, you can't touch me" attitude at first until his lawyers talked some sense into him the judge knew his apology was not even a little bit sincere.
Nice to see his douchiness suitably rewarded for once!
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" Hey! Calling him Pharma Bro is a slap in the face to all bros everywhere. The proper term is pharmadouche. "
I find that people who refer to themselves/each other as "bros" are likely to be referred to by others as "douches" anyway.
And to localise that into en_GB, people who refer to themselves/each other as "lads" are likely to be referred to by others as "twats".
He's trying to move his case from one of lying/stealing/raping to some un-prosecutable case of "just being a jerk".
It's very simple and the public consumers will eat it up. I hope the prosecutors send his tight little ass to jail for all the right reasons. Since he's into personal growth, he'll enjoy the friendly prodding.
>>He's trying to move his case from one of lying/stealing/raping to some un-prosecutable case of "just being a jerk".
Couldn't be bothered to look up what he was charged with, then. Raping? :/ He was sentenced for two counts of security fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit security fraud. He was found not guilty on five other counts of security fraud in the same case. His investors - who the state was acting on behalf of - actually made quite a lot of money from the investments so the case would probably never have come to trial if the State hadn't wanted to find him guilty of something. And this is accurate whether you like the guy or not. If the criminal actually gives you a three-fold return on your investment, you're unlikely to sue him and it never came up until he came to public attention and became a hated public figure. (The charges related to his career as a hedge-fund manager a couple of years before the drug price furore).
The fundamental rule of the rich is to pretend to care about the poor. It's the thing that stops outright revolution! And Skkreli broke that rule.
"His investors made quite a lot of money" - fine, but that doesn't actually indemnify you from what you did to make it.
If I take your $100,000, invest it on an inside tip, and return $200,000 to you - that was still insider trading, it was still illegal, and now I've implicated you in that. So even though you've done well out of it, you might reasonably feel aggrieved at me.
@Jake - "Menace to society? I think not...I've certainly never been afraid of people like that."
But he hasn't offered to buy *your* mutilation, so why would *you* worry?
It's not him specifically that the Secret Service are concerned about, so much as the crazy people who will do something because of him.
" Funny how nobody complained when the Chaos Computer Club were asking for DNA samples of prominent politicians. "
Were the members of the Chaos Computer Club up for bail hearings on felony charges?
This didn't happen because he was some kind of special case -- we heard about it because he's some kind of special case.
There are assholes in this world. There are sniveling dickheads. There are embarrassments to humanity. There are worthless wastes of eons of human evolution. There are puke-inducing turdmen who make reasonable folks weep to be members of their species.
And then there's Martin Shkreli ...
...that the judge would appoint me to give Shkreli a little private one-on-one 'spiritual counseling' for about 15-20 minutes. I honestly believe I could make him see the error of his ways. But even if he still chose to not see the light, I would walk away with a permanent grin knowing that I wiped that disgusting smirk off of the little prick's face, at least for a little while.
You obviously suffer a lack of reading comprehension skills Just Enough. I clearly stated:
"I only wish...
...that the judge would appoint me to give Shkreli a little private one-on-one 'spiritual counseling' for about 15-20 minutes"
It has nothing to do with "vigilante justice" or any of your other purely BS points. And I'm not usually an "Internet bully" but in Shkreli's case I would certainly make an exception.
Have a nice day!
Fuck over millions of sick people, that's capitalism. Threaten to pull the hair of one of the sociopaths that be*? Go in guns blazing.
Don't get me wrong, anything that puts this snake behind bars is fine by me, it just seems the priorities are a bit off.
* Not that I don't think The Orange One is any better. The world would be a better place if all of the elephants and asses (save a very select few) were burried under millions of tons of silt mixed with radioactive waste at the bottom of the ocean.
No, you don't want that poison in the food chain.
Instead, give these people the lives of the lowest of their victim for a duration commensurate to the harm they caused. No access to money, luxury, contacts, friends or health care levels of their current life: an approach by which these people get pariah status in a way they can't flee from it.
The ones that are incorrigible will experience the punishment as a humiliation (which is in their world presently the worst that can happen to them), the ones the DO learn get a chance to experience just what they are causing. On return, there will be a probationary time (a sort of 3 strikes system) that can repeat the sentence on failure.
And stop with fining *companies* as if they're people. Until an AI can run a company by itself a company is always managed by people. As a matter of fact, to do it right there is even a potential for guilt to seep into the shareholders.
-----
This was another episode of "welcome to the revolution". Regular programming shall now resume :).
"Fuck over millions of sick people, that's capitalism. Threaten to pull the hair..."
All of that and don't forget that Facebook provided the evidence for the supposed criminal charge. This news is stacked bottom to top. It's all about poster boys, so the next time you need to divert attention from corrupt motives, have a poster boy ready.
I think this is the Al Capone method. Put him in prison for anything, something is better than nothing.
Bear in mind, they only revoked his bail, in the UK you go to the slammer and await your sentencing, I amazed how many countries say "Put your affairs in order and return here in 2 months for sentence, you are going to prison".
Talk about pressure to run like hell.
Of course, it does seem more civilised (unlike the US system in general) to allow people to prepare for prison.
So why on earth do the millions upon millions of ordinary people keep voting for the same people, or virtual copies thereof? The personnel may change occasionally but not the policies/strategies. Surely it's time for a third way?
Also, i'll apologise profusely in advance, just in case anyone instantaneously vomits, but could we have some clarity on which hair was worth $5k dollars? Head or pubic**?
$50m and lifelong immunity wouldn't have tempted me in the latter.
**There again there will be some people, i amongst them, who may point out that there is little difference, in the whole.
Maybe if such as Clinton, and others, weren't so outrightly obnoxious and actually worked FOR the people, they wouldn't need protecting?
" Fuck over millions of sick people, that's capitalism. Threaten to pull the hair of one of the sociopaths that be*? Go in guns blazing "
Calling in bomb threats is highly disruptive, and therefore a crime even where there is no actual bomb.
The tweets in question were very similar. Any credible threat against a public figure becomes a massive cost and inconvenience to the security services. Her security detail will have to be increased as attempts to pull a hair cannot be readily distinguished from attempts to do more serious harm until it's too late; and anyone who genuinely wants to get close enough to do real harm might see the hair-grab thing as a useful smokescreen for a serious attack.
He really wouldn't want to do that.
People often don't understand the implication of an insanity plea on a violent offence. You're declaring that you have a mental illness that makes you a danger to society. The result is likely to be being put in a secure unit and having to go through a long, drawn-out, step-by-step process of gradual removal of restrictions before you are free. People often end up spending more time locked up than if they had just gone to prison, and if they're actually just a sociopath they could never get out
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Clearly a ****. But that's not a reason to bang him up. It obviously wasn't a call to rid anyone of some turbulent priest like the Lord AbsoluteA***" case.
But in the text it turns out he wasn't banged up for being an **** online. The story is just about bail being revoked, and the bail was in connection with real crimes. Shame on the Reg for such misleading clickbait over a non-story.
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Nick, I have quite a degree of tolerance for someone who makes fun of their own name by asking not to verb it (yes, I noticed :) ), but in this case I think you're not quite tuned in.
They locked him up because he made threatening posts on Facebook in a country where idiots can buy guns without any questions asked whilst on bail. Even if he "meant it as a joke" (which I actually doubt because he strikes me as the kind of asshole who would follow through on the reward), protective services have to take into account the fact that other idiots would give it a try. Add to that that this is apparently not the first time he's pulled a stunt like that and the termination of his bail is indeed for a Facebook posting. The reason he's on bail in the first place is indeed because of a criminal prosecution.
Yet again the media are ignoring the real story here:
What's happening with the Wu Tang album?
"See if you can surreptitiously get a hair" would have probably been legal, since people drop hairs everywhere they go. "Grab a hair off her" is borderline and the judge deemed it on the wrong side of the line.
Rather like the number of politicians that privacy advocates have fingerprints from. You don't tell people to grab their hands and force them against things, you suggest acquiring the plastic cup they just binned. Heck, a cup hrc had drunk from would probably have enough dna for this arsehole's schemes.
I didn't use to but I love his sense of humor. As far as raising pharma prices through manipulation or whatever, who cares? Who gets there meds from doctors nowdays anyways what with Obama care making certain to keep people away from the doctors. Easier to order bulk powders from China and make your own.
A fellow that I used to work with had previously been a guard in a "correctional facility". It was there that he acquired a simple phrase used to describe the inmates that they expected to see back (or perhaps, never see leave) that applies to the Martin Shkrelis of the world:
"Inherently Unteachable".
In most cases, this is a result of the subject having an unshakable idée fixe that s/he is ALWAYS the smartest person in the room.
I'm fully expecting that, even if he DOES end up @ a "Club Fed", Shkreli's apparent inability to learn will inevitably lead him to do something monumentally stupid -- my guess is that he'll try to get some sort of contraband brought in -- that will end up getting him moved to a... less genteel place of incarceration
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