Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who had a lot of support from VP Joe Biden in 2015, found guilty in fraud case

Source:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-found-guilty-in-fraud-case

"A California jury on Monday found Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty in a case in which she was accused of covering up lies about her company's blood-testing technology to dupe investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Holmes, 37, was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2018 after her Silicon Valley start-up buckled under the weight of falsified claims it could scan for hundreds of diseases and other health problems using just a few drops of blood from a tiny finger prick.

The jurors found Holmes guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against investors and three counts of wire fraud.

Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Holmes was found not guilty of another count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against patients and three other counts of wire fraud.

One count was dropped, and the jury was unable to come to a verdict on three additional counts of wire fraud.

If the technology was sound, as she said it was, it would have dramatically improved the conventional method of drawing vials of blood from needles, shipping them off to a lab, and waiting for results, which would often take up to days.

The Theranos pitch was so compelling that Holmes and her business partner Ramesh Balwani were able to quickly secure $945 million in funding and ink lucrative deals with Pfizer, Walgreens, and Safeway.

Holmes became the sweetheart of Silicon Valley and was featured on numerous magazine covers.

She was likened to Apple founder Steve Jobs and even wore the same black-colored turtlenecks Jobs donned when giving a presentation.

She's also been accused of lowering her voice an octave or two to impress her male business associates, slipping back to her natural tone around family.

Holmes's trial stretched on for nearly four months.

Dozens of scientists, chief executives, and even a four-star general were called as witnesses.

Prosecutors spent most of their case painting Holmes as a desperate con artist who brazenly lied to make money.

The defense claimed she was a misunderstood woman under the thumb of a controlling co-owner and Svengali, who manipulated her at every turn.

The trial's most riveting testimony came from the defendant herself, who said she was raped at Stanford University, dropped out of college, and moved in with Balwani.

She testified Balwani let her down by failing to fix problems the company was having in the lab.

Balwani, who is scheduled to go on trial in February, has vehemently denied those accusations.

During her testimony, Holmes also acknowledged she had made some bad decisions and big mistakes.

She told jurors that she never stopped believing Theranos was on the verge of a major technological breakthrough that would revolutionize healthcare.

But that hope never materialized.

Theranos's technology turned out to be severely flawed and produced wildly unreliable results.

Prosecutors said even though Holmes knew this, she continued with press tours and hailed it as a success.

All that came to a screeching halt when a 2015 Wall Street Journal report started to poke holes in the company's claims.

Their report was followed by an audit by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and soon thereafter, the U.S. Justice Department got involved and filed charges against Holmes and Balwani.

The company dissolved in 2018 after facing several civil and criminal federal investigations and reached an undisclosed settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Holmes separately settled with the SEC in a deal that stripped her from being an officer or director of any public company for 10 years and required her to pay a $500,000 penalty.

Holmes agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the charges against her.

Holmes was scheduled to go on trial much earlier — she was charged three years ago — but her fraud trial was delayed by COVID-19 and a pregnancy.

Holmes gave birth to a boy on July 10 with her partner Billy Evans."

Source:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/biden-played-big-role-in-promoting-convicted-fraudster-elizabeth-holmes-and-theranos

... Theranos touted Biden’s July 23, 2015 visit to its headquarters in a lengthy press release, calling it “A New Era of Preventive Health Care" summit.

Both the company and Biden repeatedly posted on Twitter about the event.

    "Information is the lifeblood of research."

-VP Biden on innovation in health care today at the Theranos manufacturing facility

— VP Biden 

 (Archived) 

(@VP44)

July 23, 2015

“Talk about being inspired," Biden said at the time,
though he turned down the chance to have his blood drawn.
 

"This is inspiration. It is amazing to me, Elizabeth,
what you’ve been able to do.”

Biden praised Theranos for "charging historically low prices" and making its supposedly game-changing diagnostic tools available to all.

An audio recording showed Holmes returning the flattery.

“It is an absolute privilege and a tremendous honor to have Vice President Biden here with us,” Holmes said in her opening remarks.

“He is someone I so deeply respect and am so inspired by the context of his service to our country and the bold actions he has taken in service to our country throughout his career.”


Theranos said Biden joined Holmes on a tour of its “laboratory and manufacturing facility, seeing Theranos’ finger stick test and innovative test system, and meeting many of the company’s employees.”

Much of what he saw was a sham.

The valuation of Theranos was pegged as high as $9 billion in 2014 and, since she owned 50% of the company, her net worth was as high as $4.5 billion — at least on paper.

... Biden's praise for Holmes and her crooked company has not aged well. In his visit, Biden talked about his own aneurysm and his late son Beau Biden's brain cancer as he praised Theranos.

... Biden made it clear that then-President Barack Obama was supportive of Theranos too.

“You know, the president and I, as I hope we’ve demonstrated, led by the president, share your vision of a new healthcare paradigm focused on preventive care,” Biden said.

Theranos highlighted that Biden had supported the company regarding its dealings with the Food and Drug Administration when he said, “The fact that you’re voluntarily submitting all of your tests to the FDA demonstrates your confidence in what you’re doing.”

... Theranos board members included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, former Republican Sen. Bill Frist, and former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis.

... Holmes had been invited to a White House state dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2015, with the event attended by the Obamas, the Bidens, and others.

Obama named Holmes a “Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship” in May 2015 and honored her and eight other new fellow PAGE honorees at a “Global Entrepreneurship” event on May 11.

The Theranos founder was a staunch ally of the Clinton family as well, appearing at multiple Clinton Foundation events onstage with former President Bill Clinton and campaigning with Chelsea Clinton at a March 2016 fundraiser."