The founder of Theranos was found guilty on four counts in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, January 3, 2022.
Two pieces of evidence helped the jury convict ElizabethHolmes, the founder of failed medical diagnostic startup Theranos, of fraud.
A jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud involving investors. She was acquitted of defrauding patients and the jury couldn't agree on her guilt. After more than 50 hours of deliberations, four women and eight men reached a decision.
One juror described two pieces of evidence as smoking guns in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The report that Theranos' founder, ElizabethHolmes, gave to investors had a Pfizer logo at the top of the page, making it look like the pharmaceutical company had either written or approved its findings. The second set of projections was shared with investors, including the DeVos family office.
The jury in the Apple trial found a sheet of paper with many false statements. She was trying to make this thing look better than it was.
Projections.
The projections show that Theranos will bring in 140 million dollars in revenue and lose $3 million. The company expects revenue to be almost $1 billion and profit to be over $200 million in 2015. The jury found the claim that Theranos would bring in $40 million in revenue from pharmaceutical companies in the year of 2014 to be damning.
The court heard that Lisa Peterson mentioned "900 stores" in the document, which was related to the claim that Theranos would have its devices in 900 Walgreens stores. The figure was damning for the jurors. They heard testimony that Walgreens had scaled back the number of stores they would open. In just 41 stores, Theranos testing was introduced.
When it got to providing those hard-money figures that were completely bogus, I had to say no.
Advertisement
The jury had a hard time convicting her of the allegations that she cheated patients. They agreed that the lab was poorly run, but they didn't think the prosecution had presented enough evidence to convince them that he had marketed problematic tests to patients.
If we only had to prove that she knew there were problems in the lab, that would be one thing. The bar was higher for the charges. The foreman, who didn't want to be identified, said he initially supported a guilty verdict for the doctor but changed his mind after the jury debated the matter.
Witness credibility.
The jurors rated each witness on a scale of one to four stars, with four being the most credible. Patients of Theranos, doctors, and former defense secretary Jim Mattis were some of the people who received top marks.
One key witness, Erika Cheung, was docked a star for appearing to be invested in a certain outcome. Cheung worked in the research and development lab at Theranos. She quit after seven months and filed a report with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Cheung told the WSJ that she respected the jury but noted that her credibility ranking with the jury showed that there is still stigmatization against whistle blowers. The trial backed up her allegations and INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals INRDeals
She was the lowest-ranked witness. The jury believed the allegations of abuse by the Theranos executive. They didn't think it played a role in the fraud.
The jury felt that the testimony was a sympathy ploy.
