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Martin Shkreli Is Found Guilty of Fraud

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After five days of deliberations, jurors on Friday convicted Martin Shkreli on three counts of fraud in federal court, and he now faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the first two counts, and up to five years on the final count, the New York Times reported on Saturday. At the trial in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, Shkreli was accused of securities and wire fraud related to two hedge funds he ran, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare. Prosecutors charged he illegally used a pharmaceutical company he founded, Retrophin, to repay defrauded MSMB investors. And they said that he secretly controlled a huge number of Retrophin shares. He was acquitted of counts one and two, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud regarding MSMB Capital; counts four and five, the same charges with MSMB Healthcare; and count seven, conspiracy to commit wire fraud with regard to defrauding Retrophin by using funds from it to pay MSMB investors.

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Jury in Martin Shkreli Fraud Trial Has Questions for the Judge

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The first substantive note from jurors in Martin Shkreli’s fraud trial asked on Tuesday about assets under management and what “fraudulent intent” meant, the New York Times reported today. The jurors had been deliberating for more than a day and a half in Shkreli’s trial in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The questions were: “Do assets under management refer to a particular fund being described, or to all assets managed by the portfolio manager/general partner?” They also asked for a legal definition of assets under management. And they asked for an expansion or elaboration of the term “fraudulent intent,” a key to the defense’s arguments that Shkreli is innocent. Shkreli is charged with eight counts of securities and wire fraud. Prosecutors argued he lied to investors in two hedge funds, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, by making claims like the one that he was using a specific auditor and law firm, when he wasn’t. He sent them fake statements showing their money was growing, when in fact the accounts for the funds were nearly empty.

Brentwood Water Users Foot Unpaid Bill for Bankrupt Golf Course in Antioch

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The city is stuck holding a $136,000 bill after a local golf club company filed for bankruptcy and its general manager was arrested for loan and insurance fraud, East Bay Times reported yesterday. City council members voted to write-off $136,536.75 in uncollectable debt from non-potable water usage bills that Roddy Ranch Golf Management LLC owed. Roddy Ranch Golf Management LLC operated a 235-acre course and filed for chapter 7 on April 18, citing rising water costs for their closure. On the same day, the golf club’s general manager, Kevin Fitzgerald turned himself into police after appearing on Northern California’s Most Wanted list. He was wanted for conspiring to commit loan fraud, committing insurance fraud, filing a false police report, diverting construction funds and defrauding an elder. Authorities said that Fitzgerald and a general contractor, Mark Mattson, had conspired together to steal $200,000 from an $800,000 loan to the golf club to install solar panels. Money for the water bill still owed to the city of Brentwood will be taken out of the Water Enterprise Fund.

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Bitcoin Exchange Was a Nexus of Crime, Indictment Says

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A Russian man was charged with overseeing a black market Bitcoin exchange that helped launder billions of dollars and stood at the nexus of several criminal enterprises, The New York Times reported today. The indictment, which was unsealed in California on Wednesday, gave a long list of illegal activities that the Bitcoin exchange (BTC-E) facilitated, including ransomware fraud, identity theft, drug trafficking and public corruption. Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece; he had “directed and supervised” BTC-E’s operations and is said to have had co-conspirators. Justice Department officials said that the exchange appeared to have been responsible for laundering more than $4 billion for criminals, with most of the money turned into American dollars and Russian rubles. The site served 700,000 customers around the world, the officials said. The indictment may offer an explanation for a shock to the digital coin market in 2014. Vinnik and his partners are accused of stealing funds from the Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, which declared bankruptcy in 2014 after disclosing a hacker intrusion. Mt. Gox’s chief executive, Mark Karpeles, said that year that it had lost more than 800,000 Bitcoins, some of which the company later said it had recovered. The indictment said that hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins moved from Mt. Gox into accounts at BTC-E that were directly controlled by Vinnik.

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BitCoin

Convicted Entrepreneur and Disbarred Missouri Judge Tied to Bankrupt International Firm

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At the center of a hometown corporate failure in Moberly, Mo., is Floyd E. Riley, the “consummate entrepreneur” and showman who is revered as Moberly’s booster and benefactor, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Saturday. Some of his past ventures have landed him in federal prison. His diverse list of ambitious business pursuits ranges from cattle embryos to incinerators, retread tires to cinnamon buns, coal to catfish and heavy equipment to freshwater lobster. His latest venture is called Worldwide Recycling Equipment Sales LLC, which resells, rents and builds heavy machinery used in the recycling, environmental cleanup and oil and gas industries. Like other Riley enterprises before it, the company has run aground financially. Worldwide filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, with a long list of creditors and under pressure from a bank that had filed its own suit for payment. On paper, Riley’s wife, Rebecca, is the one tied to the business. But it’s Floyd Riley, who drives the company-issued Cadillac SUV parked in a handicapped slot in front with a nice set of tires that haven’t been paid for. Riley was released from federal custody in 2006, after serving most of a 21-month prison sentence. He’d pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering and transporting property in interstate commerce. The charges stemmed from two of his earlier Moberly businesses. But Riley isn’t the only person with a criminal record with ties to Worldwide. Its president, Jeffrey D. Sayre, is a former Missouri judge who served time on bribery charges, a detail that has been omitted from an aggressive publicity campaign.
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