In September 2021, the criminologist Betsy Stanko went into the Metropolitan police force to work out why they weren’t catching rapists. The previous year, less than 3% of rapes reported to the Met had resulted in charges being brought; in 2021, that percentage almost halved.
The Elle magazine article was a shocker. It went live a few days before Christmas and told a story of a journalist who lost her husband and her job because she fell in love with her source, who happened to be one of the most hated men on the planet, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. Why had Bloomberg News reporter Christie Smythe tossed away her “perfect little Brooklyn life” to pursue a seemingly doomed love affair with a sneering criminal known for jacking up medicine prices by 5,000 percent?
