Theranos elizabeth holmes1/29/2024 The trial officially began last week with three days of jury selection, in which more than 200 people were called and dozens were questioned. It could backfire if jurors do not view her as credible and give prosecutors latitude to bring in a broader range of evidence, they said. Holmes’s lawyers said last year that she was “highly likely” to take the stand in her own defense, a move that experts called risky. To convict Holmes, the jury of 12 must unanimously find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of intending to defraud customers and investors. The most serious charges of wire fraud require prosecutors to prove Holmes acted with intent to defraud. In court filings, Holmes’s attorneys have also argued there is a missing link between what Holmes herself knew and what Theranos employees told doctors and regulators about the company’s technology.Įlizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of Theranos, arrives in court. Legal experts say beyond the alleged abuse defense, it appears Holmes will argue she did not fully understand the complex science behind the devices and believed they worked. Evans was in attendance at the trial, sitting several rows behind Holmes with the public. She had her first child with her partner, the hotel heir Billy Evans, on 5 August. Holmes’s trial comes after months of delays caused first by the global pandemic and then Holmes’s own pregnancy. “The investors in this case are incredibly sophisticated people who knew the risks of investing,” he said.Īfter both sides concluded their opening statements, the prosecution called its first witness: Denise Yam, a corporate controller at the company from 2006 to 2017, who detailed some financial figures from that time before proceedings came to a close for the day. He also argued that the investors who were allegedly defrauded by Holmes were aware of the dangers of Silicon Valley investing and recognized that Theranos was a speculative investment. “By the time the trial is over, you will see the villain the government just represented is actually just a living, breathing human being who did her very best each and every day – and she is innocent,” he added. “But failure is not a crime – trying your hardest and coming up short is not a crime.” “In the end, Theranos failed, and Ms Holmes walked away with nothing,” he said. “She poured her heart and soul into that effort,” he added. He said she “worked herself to the bone” for 15 years trying to make lab testing cheaper and more accessible. Wade painted a picture of Holmes as a hardworking young woman who did not understand that the technology at Theranos could not live up to her lofty ideals. Balwani, who faces his own trial in 2022 for fraud, has strongly denied these claims.Ī courtroom sketch of Elizabeth Holmes as opening arguments begin. “Her deceit of reporters was an important way that she executed her fraud,” Leach said.Īs the trial gets under way, early court filings suggested lawyers for Holmes would try to prove she was manipulated by an “abusive” relationship with Balwani into over-promising the capabilities of Theranos devices. Lionizing media coverage of the company and its CEO were crucial in polishing Theranos’s image, prosecutors alleged. “Out of time and out of money, Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie,” the US attorney Robert Leach said. Photograph: Nick Otto/AFP/Getty Imagesįederal prosecutors argued that Holmes and her alleged co-conspirator, her former romantic partner and business associate Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, defrauded investors and deceived patients when the company began making its tests commercially available. People line up for the fraud trial of Elizabeth Holmes outside the courthouse in San Jose on 8 September.
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