> (unless you're Shkreli, don't think his investors lost money, but he pissed off some politicians because he said the quiet parts out loud about how the pharma industry works)
What's the TL;DR? His wikipedia page doesn't make it obvious.
Shkreli's schtick was to buy out or control pharma companies that had a monopoly and jack the everliving fuck out of the prices. He had some programs for uninsured people, but he would milk the insurance companies absolutely dry, which gave him some wild profits.
This made a bunch of powerful people absolutely enraged, as he was basically publicly bragging about jacking the ever living fuck out of the prices. Pharma companies do this but Shkreli would publicly say it and tell the truth that basically the other companies were doing it while pretending to be good people, and he was only being honest about it. Poor people were pissed because they were told they couldn't get their drugs (I'm unaware if the program that allowed uninsured people to get them for cheap was real or not), and the rich insurance people pissed because he was basically he was bilking them.
So they went back and discovered one or some of his other early enterprises weren't profitable, but that he had used money he made off his later pharma enterprises to pay back his earlier investors.
In trial, his investors testified they were happy with the situation, lost no money, and would invest with him again. But they still convicted him for fraud, even despite the 'victims' themselves did not believe they were defrauded. It didn't help that Shkreli is probably one of the most profoundly unlikeable people you can possible listen to, unless you're not bothered to hear a hyper-capitalist be honest about how they do business.
He would paint himself as a working man's hero, "I'm making insurers pay more so you can get your drugs cheaper", always avoiding the awkward questions of where the insurer's money came from and why premiums kept rising (note that I'm also not siding with insurers here, especially those who have implemented PBMs to leech money into their pockets). He basically treated the public as useful idiots who thought that insurance was paying more for their drugs out of ... charity? Goodwill? The money fairy?
Then there was also the fact that at least once (and to a slightly lesser extent, twice), he went to the FDA to block the approval of a new drug, arguing it shouldn't be on the market. Why?
Not because it was less effective than the market options - it had better results.
Not because it had more/worse side effects, complications and interactions - it had better results there too.
Not because it was prohibitive, or patenting or anything stifling to the market.
No, it was because Shkreli had recently purchased a manufacturer of one of those existing drugs and their portfolio, and had been in the process of ramping up his price gouging on that drug, i.e. "The FDA should block approval of this better drug because it limits my ability to profit from my 'worse' drug."
Regardless on your take about his antics, it seems clear the fraud prosecution had a lot more to do with his pharma antics than the government actually caring that much about how he paid back investors at prior companies, especially since to my knowledge none of his investors were going to the government with complaints. No one gave a shit about the guy until his (seemingly legal) pharma 'gouging' practices pissed off a huge segment of influential people.
I do unfortunately agree with that. But to this day I still see people who see him as some unsung hero, and the prosecution of him for one of many horrible acts was one that only doubled down on that vision.
Sounds like basically the big boy version of how all the other psychiatrists who run plausibly deniable pill mills will screech about the one running a flagrant pill mill until they lose their license.
Victims not wanting prosecution doesn’t absolve the perpetrator as wife beaters learn all the time. I also think Skhreli’s biggest mistake was threatening Hillary Clinton.
If a wife says at trial she wasn't beat, it's extremely likely you're getting a conviction. I'm aware of a recent high profile case (Mike Glover) where the partner even had signs of broken bones and a beaten down door and the partner just later changed her story to those being due to a recreational accident outdoors and that pretty much terminated the case between that and her not providing a favorable testimony. But that's aside the point.
In this case the wife never called the cops, and then when the cops showed up she claimed she wasn't beat, and not only that she has no visible marks or bruises or anything.
And none of this is justifying any of it. Just showing how far outside of what we commonly see in fraud cases that actually get convicted.
What's the TL;DR? His wikipedia page doesn't make it obvious.