Theranos case: The future of Elizabeth Holmes will soon be decided by judges | Business and Economic Affairs

After three months with many witnesses, Elizabeth Holmes’ fate is about to be decided by 12 judges.

The defense attorney was delivering his final hearing on Friday on a charge of inciting Theranos Inc. fraud. in San Jose, California. Defendants will have the opportunity to challenge, and then the judges will begin to negotiate. Holmes is expected to serve up to 20 years in prison if convicted on 11 counts of embezzling funds from patients during a blood test.

Holmes’ attorney Kevin Downey said there was “real disagreement” in government claims that he had deliberately misappropriated savings on what testers might do.

Throughout the three-month trial, prosecutors accused Holmes of exaggerating the potential and reliability of the machines offered to investors and businesses as change agents.

Downey told the judges that the way the government is correcting the shortcomings of the original models is missing the point that Holmes was attracting investors who wanted to hold shares for five or 10 years by telling them what they wanted to achieve when the machines grew up. developed.

“When Mrs. Holmes started talking to the bankers, what did she think? What kind of investors did he want? Downey said. “As you may recall he testified that he was looking for people who had been with him for a long time.”

The closing lawsuit, which began in early September, is a last resort for both parties to change jurors before negotiations. The court has to decide whether the 37-year-old businessman is guilty of fraud and conspiracy filed in 2018, the same year Theranos fell after reaching a $ 9 billion price tag.

The attorney general on Thursday used his final argument to convince judges that after Theranos ran out of money in 2013 and 2014, Holmes “made the decision to steal from his sellers.”

“He chose the unfaithfulness of the trustees and patients,” said U.S. Attorney General Jeff Schenk.

Downey sought to justify his remarks by emphasizing that investors were explicitly informed of the risks of “entering a new trading business.”

He also showed the judges a graph showing that the price of Theranos went from 92 cents in 2006 to $ 17 in 2014. He argued that investors did not care about the company’s expertise. Instead, all he needed to know was that Walgreens agreed to put the machine in his stores. It means “the world’s largest company” reviewed the technology and decided to own Theranos, he said.

“It simply came to our notice then.

The attorney general responded to one of the government’s worst offenses in the case: That Holmes lied by telling investors that Theranos’ expertise had been taken over and used by US troops. He looked closely at the tapes the government had played in the case while Holmes described the appointment of the military to the representative and, in contrast, to the journalist.

Downey also said that Theranos actually had several military contracts and told the judges that, “his words follow the language of the alliance,” Downey said.

“They’re being told, I think, right the way the business is,” Downey said. “This was not just a fantasy that Ms. Holmes was making in a conversation” or “exaggeration.”

Downey said the government had not called witnesses from the Ministry of Defense who would have clarified the relationship with Theranos.

The lawyer cited the highest level of evidence to testify, retired General James Mattis. When a former security secretary was asked if he knew if the analyzer was winning the war, he said he did not know.

That’s why Mattis “quit all jobs with the Department of Defense,” Downey said, referring to Theranos business.

The case is US v. Holmes, 18-cr-00258, US Regional Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).