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Elizabeth Holmes made the arguments long awaited by lawyers, as she defended herself in court.
Ms. Holmes, the founder of the failed blood test venture Theranos, tried to blame other Theranos employees with more technical skills. He tried to poke holes in prosecutors’ arguments that he lied about working with drug companies. Lawyers said she tried to appear sympathetic and realistic by going to court hand in hand with her mother and wearing courtroom-appropriate outfits instead of the black turtlenecks she was once famous for.
All of this, they said, was part of portraying Ms. Holmes as a well-meaning but ultimately unsuccessful manager, not someone who deliberately misled investors and should be convicted of fraud.
“This is exactly what you’d expect,” said Neama Rahmani, president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm and a former federal prosecutor. “Broadly speaking, there are two types of defense when you get into these types of cases: ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘It wasn’t me’.”
Ms. Holmes, 37, was charged with 11 counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. He pleaded not guilty. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Mr. Rahmani, while emphasizing Ms. Holmes’ own ignorance, said attempts to blame others for the company’s problems were typical fraud suspects. He said the tactic is also used in money laundering and drug cases – cases where prosecutors have to prove that a defendant was carrying drugs or knew that the money came from illegal activities.
In Ms. Holmes’ case, she and her team will “do everything they can to distance themselves from this information,” he said.
Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School and a former federal prosecutor, said attempts to make Ms. Holmes look ignorant were part of a larger strategy.
“What I would expect a defendant in a high-profile case to do is try to humanize themselves and make the jury see that they are not just a corporate CEO, but a person with the flaws that any person running a large company might have,” said Mr. Cohen added that the presence of Ms. Holmes’ mother in the room “told the jury that she might have been a sympathetic character and not the brainchild of this fraudulent scheme.”
Citing Theranos’ work with pharmaceutical companies, Mrs. Holmes’ attempts to rebut the arguments put forward by the prosecution, Mr. Rahmani said, were likely an attempt to create uncertainty about Ms. Holmes’ guilt.
“They’re trying to paint a much more nuanced picture, because frankly, all they have to do is create reasonable suspicion. “They’re hoping to pick a few jurors,” he said. “If they get some sympathetic people or some people who are on the fence, that’s the road to success here.”
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