Topline
After months of delays, jury selection is set to begin Tuesday for the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, the former Silicon Valley darling charged with knowingly misleading investors and patients with her company’s blood-testing technology—here’s what you need to know ahead of the high-profile trial.
Key Facts
Holmes, now 37 years old, faces a total of 12 charges—two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud—for allegedly engaging in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme alongside Theranos’ former COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, with whom she was romantically involved.
Facing up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 dollar fine for allegedly deceiving investors, doctors and patients from 2010 to 2016, Holmes and Balwani have both pleaded not guilty and are standing trial separately (Balwani’s trial is set to begin January 2022).
Holmes’ trial was delayed for months due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the birth of her first child, but is set to begin Tuesday with jury selection, and could last between three or four months in total.
Her lawyers previously suggested they may seek a “mental disease” defense in her case, but appear poised to instead point fingers at Balwani, who Holmes plans to accuse of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse, according to a court filing unsealed Saturday whose contents Balwani already “adamently” denies.
It also appears Holmes’ legal team will argue her wrongful marketing of Theranos’ technology was in line with a common practice for startups exaggerating their products to secure investments, a line of defense the prosecution unsuccessfully attempted to block.
Prosecutors have filed a proposed witness list of nearly 280 people including some of Holmes’ associates and other famous figures also in Theranos’ orbit like media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, as well as about 11 patients who say they were impacted by the company’s inaccurate test results.
What To Watch For
Whether Holmes will take the stand herself, a decision that probably won’t be known until later in the trial. Holmes’ lawyers said in the recently unsealed court filings that she will “likely” testify about the abuse she claims she experienced from Balwani.
Key Background
Holmes skyrocketed to fame nearly a decade ago and was hailed as a visionary for Theranos, a company she founded at age 19 while she was still a student at Stanford University. Setting the lofty goal of revolutionizing healthcare, Holmes pitched a blood test that would be able to run hundreds of diagnostic tests from cancer to diabetes from just a small drop of patients’ blood. She attracted a litany of high-profile investors who pumped more than $700 million into the company and also struck partnerships with Walgreens, Cleveland Clinic, Capital BlueCross and more from 2013 to 2015. A media darling, she appeared on the covers of most major magazines and was declared America’s youngest self-made female billionaire by Forbes in 2015 after Theranos was valued at $9 billion. The momentum was suddenly broken later that year when the Wall Street Journal published a series of investigations calling into question the effectiveness of Theranos’ blood testing machines, which it also found were giving patients incorrect diagnoses. This catalyzed an immense fall from grace that led to the business dissolving in September 2018 and Holmes’ estimated net worth falling to $0, according to Forbes.
Crucial Quote
The central question of the trial will be whether jurors believe Holmes knew what she was doing, Nancy Gertner, a former U.S. federal judge and senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, told CNN. “Either she had a device that could never work, or that couldn’t work yet,” Gertner said. “The latter is a more murky situation.”
Surprising Fact
The trials of Holmes and Balwani have been complicated by the disappearance of a database containing information for millions of Theranos lab tests that likely would have served as a central piece of evidence in the trial. The blood-testing company gave a copy of the database to the government in July 2018, but then dismantled the servers that stored it, deleting the database. Holmes’ legal team have since argued patient testimony should be excluded from the trial due to a lack of evidence about what caused the inaccurate results.
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August 30, 2021 at 09:39PM
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Elizabeth Holmes’ Trial Starts This Week—Here’s What To Know About Her Charges, Defense Strategy And More - Forbes
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