If Martin Shkreli "Threads The Needle" -- And Eventually Reaches A Briefing Schedule, In The Second Circuit...

As a bit of background, we've covered the Trump financier / Thomas Barrack (stealing from the taxpayers -- via secret UAE deals, against US interests, while working for Trump) felony case, in Brooklyn. . . closely. Barrack, a billionaire many times over, benefited by over $367 million -- by secretly selling out his nation, while working as an advisor to Tangerine. He will go to jail. But he argued last week that a Supremes case decided last month, called Ruan -- means he must go free.

Martin is likely to try a similar gambit, in his Second Circuit appeal (should he ever get to a briefing), so I cover now why people like Barrack and Shkreli are wrong -- about what Ruan actually means.

Here it is, in seven pages of context, from the Brooklyn AUSAs -- and a bit:

. . .The defendants are wrong. Ruan addressed a different statute in a different context, did not establish a new approach to analyzing the mens rea requirements of criminal statutes, and is entirely consistent with this Court’s reasoning in its denial of Grimes’s motion to dismiss the indictment (the “Motion to Dismiss”). The defendants’ contention that “specific intent should be read into Section 951 in the face of legislative silence” because of Ruan (Mot. at 3) is flatly contradicted by Ruan itself, which reaffirmed a long line of cases providing that general intent is typically read into statutes that are silent as to mens rea. See Ruan, 2022 WL 2295024 at *6. Contrary to announcing a change in controlling law, as required to warrant reconsideration, Ruan only underscores that this Court applied the law correctly in its decision. . . .

Ruan addressed a provision of the Controlled Substances Act that prohibited the knowing or intentional manufacture, distribution, or dispensation of controlled substances, such as opioids, “except as authorized.” See generally Ruan, 2022 WL 2295024. As in Rehaif, the Supreme Court, applying “ordinary and longstanding scienter requirements” to the “except as authorized” clause, held that when a criminal defendant “meets the burden of producing evidence that” he is authorized to dispense controlled substances, the burden shifts to the government to prove that the defendant distributed the controlled substance knowing that the dispensation at issue was actually without authorization. Id. at **5-6 (“§841’s ‘knowing and intentionally’ mens rea applies to the ‘except as authorized’ clause”). Notably, Ruan did not hold that the government must allege and prove that a defendant was aware of the legal prohibition on manufacturing, distributing, or dispensing controlled substances without such authorization. . . .

Violating the antitrust laws, in the way Martin was found to have, at trial in Manhattan did not require the FTC to prove specific intent, as it was a civil, not criminal matter.

And, in any event, his own calls and emails plainly establish that he specifically intended to violate the applicable law, in creating his monopoly on Daraprim.

So as I've long said. . . any appeal is. . . DOA.

Onward, to a sunny cool Wednesday bike ride, by the clear lake waters. . . smile.

नमस्ते