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SAN JOSE, California — It took less than three weeks, one person’s testimony and wide-ranging topics such as financial forecasts, private jets, falsified documents and partner abuse.
On Wednesday, lawyers Elizabeth HolmesThe founder of the blood test initiative Theranos defended his defenses fraud case. He was the last witness, and after seven days on the stand, his testimony abruptly ended on a question about justice.
“Do you understand that Theranos are entitled to accurate answers about their abilities?” Robert Leach, a US attorney general and attorney general, asked Ms. Holmes, referring to Theranos’ investors and the patients who were at the center of the case’s fraud charges.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Holmes.
The end of his defense marked the final stages of a lawsuit that lasted nearly four months and wowed the public as a referendum on the startup culture of Silicon Valley. Ms. Holmes, 37, has faced scams 11 times over allegations she made to investors and patients about Theranos, which collapsed in scandal in 2018.
Next, lawyers on both sides of the case must agree on a set of jury instructions before presenting their closing arguments, which begins December 16. The jury will then begin deliberations for a verdict on the case, which stands out due to very little technology. executives face criminal fraud charges.
Mrs. Holmes’ testimony formed the bulk of her defence. For seven days, he blamed others for Theranos’ failure and blood-testing technology. He said that his words were misunderstood and that he believed the Theranos devices were working. He said he kept some information about Theranos because it was a trade secret. And she focused on her ex-boyfriend and business partner Ramesh Balwani, whom Theranos says was responsible for the exaggerated financial projections and problems in her lab.
Mr. Balwani, known as Sunny and nearly twenty years older than him, was also controlling and abusive, Mrs. Holmes testified. She wrote down her schedule, her diet, her presentation, and who she could see, she said. He also said that he forced her to have sex with him.
When asked how this affected her work at Theranos, Ms. Holmes said it was difficult to separate where her influence began and ended. In legal filings filed before the trial began, Mr. Balwani vehemently denied the allegations of misconduct.
But Mrs. Holmes also admitted that she had made a mistake. He added the pharmaceutical companies’ logos to the verification reports he sent to investors, which led them to believe that the pharmaceutical companies were backing Theranos’ technology. He said he regretted the way he handled a Wall Street Journal disclosure with private investigators and the legal attacks on former employees who spoke to the journalist. And he acknowledged that he allowed false information to spread in a positive way. Fortune cover article About her.
Ms. Holmes concluded her statement with a speech about her intention to present Theranos to investors, patients and the press.
“I wanted to convey the effect,” he said. “I wanted to talk about what this company could do one year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. They weren’t interested in today or tomorrow or next month, they were interested in what kind of change we could make.”
All of this was aimed at bolstering the defense’s main argument, as stated in their opening statement in September. His lawyers said Mrs. Holmes made mistakes. But his mistakes were not crimes. They claimed to be naive and ambitious, but they never wanted to deceive.
“Theranos didn’t see mistakes as crimes, they saw them as part of the road to success,” said Lance Wade, one of Ms. Holmes’ attorneys, in her opening speech.
On cross-examination, prosecutors tried to dispel Ms. Holmes’ alibis. They noted that Theranos shares many other trade secrets with partners that have signed non-disclosure agreements. He noted times when Ms. Holmes allowed false and misleading information about Theranos to spread to investors and patients.
Early in the trial, during the testimony of 29 witnesses summoned by prosecutors, Ms. Holmes’ lawyers tried to confuse the facts of the case. They attacked the credibility of investors by trying to show that they are. should have done better Do research on Theranos before investing to understand the risks and the details of its business. They tried to argue that patients who reported receiving disturbing blood test results from Theranos were not authorized to interpret them.
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