June 28 :
A federal court handed down a 7.5-year sentence to Rishi Shah on June 26. Shah co-founded the pharmaceutical advertising agency Outcome Health. Last year, Shah, along with two other former executives, Shradha Agarwal and Brad Purdy, were found guilty on numerous charges of fraud.
Courthouse News Service reports that US District Judge Thomas Durkin found Shah's good character and devotion to his young kid to be mitigating circumstances, but he found Shah's avarice and ambition to be reprehensible. His ambition to become a prominent figure was fueled by greed, according to Durkin. Shah was characterized by federal prosecutor Kyle Hankey as the principal organizer of the scheme and the most culpable defendant.
Medications were advertised on screens at doctors' offices by Outcome Health, which was founded in 2006 by Shah and Agarwal under the name ContextMedia LLC. By 2017, the company had grown to a valuation of more than $5 billion. In the same year, the firm received $500 million from prominent investors like Google affiliate CapitalG and Goldman Sachs.
But in October 2017, a story in the Wall Street Journal revealed possible fraud, which led to a federal inquiry. Shah, Agarwal, and Purdy were indicted in 2019 for their alleged involvement in a roughly $1 billion fraud involving clients, lenders, and investors. According to the prosecution, Outcome Health falsified documents to hide the fact that they underdelivered on advertising while charging clients full price.
According to Courthouse News Service, in April 2023, jurors found Shah guilty on 19 charges, Agarwal on 15, and Purdy on 13, despite the fact that Shah's defense had pointed the finger at former VP of sales Ashik Desai, who had pleaded guilty in 2019, as the culprit.
Judge Durkin assessed that Outcome's pharmaceutical clients lost $23.3 million, even though he acknowledged that the $1 billion number referred to monies solicited and not real losses. Money lost is known as a loss. Durkin noted that these pharmaceutical businesses' losses persisted year after year.
The defense team for Shah argued that he may still have a good impact while confined at home rather than in prison. "The world is better with Rishi," remarked his friend Kevin Smith. Without admitting culpability, Shah conveyed regret and a yearning for atonement. According to Shah, he is profoundly guilty about what transpired at Outcome Health. Richard Finneran, Shah's lawyer, intends to file an appeal against both the 2023 judgment and the June 26th sentencing.
