Michael Barbella, Managing Editor02.07.22
The irony is almost laughable, in all honesty.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes isn’t wasting any time contesting her guilty verdict. Barely two weeks after her Jan. 3 fraud conviction, the disgraced entrepreneur filed paperwork in federal court contesting the jury’s decision.
A legal motion filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, seeks to seal juror questionnaires from public view because their content “may be the subject of further litigation,” according to The Mercury News (San Jose). Holmes’ lawyers suspect the questionnaires could be key to overturning the 37-year-old’s fraud conviction.
Specifically, Holmes’ legal team is hoping the inquiries yield evidence of juror dishonesty, undisclosed past incidents, or other issues affecting the fairness of her trial proceedings. Lawyers for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and convicted murderer Scott Peterson are citing juror disclosure inconsistencies as justification for new trials for their clients; two jurors in Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial failed to divulge past sexual abuse to the court, while a female adjudicator in Peterson’s original 2004 murder trial falsely claimed she had never been a victim of domestic violence or subject of a lawsuit.
There currently is no indication that any of the Holmes trial jurors misrepresented themselves during the voir dire process. Holmes’ attorneys have jurors’ original questionnaires and can contact them directly or indirectly (private investigator), but at this point, counselors are probably only trying to determine whether panel members answered questions truthfully.
Just as truthfully as Holmes, perhaps?
If that’s the case, then Holmes has a shot at a new trial.
“She [Holmes] chose to be dishonest with her investors and with patients,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk (San Jose) told jurors in wrapping up the federal government’s case against Holmes on Dec. 16. “That choice was not only callous, it was criminal...The case is about false statements made to investors and false statements made to patients.”
Some of those false statements were quite blatant, too. Case in point: Holmes’ notoriously boasted that her company’s blood testing technology could run hundreds of analyses from a single drop of blood, when in reality, it could only run 12.
Quite forthcoming on Holmes’ part.
The former chief executive was equally as candid about her company’s solvency and the accuracy of its “revolutionary” blood tests. But federal prosecutors set the record straight through evidence presented at Holmes’ 15-week criminal fraud trial last fall.
Schenk, for example, showed jurors emails Holmes received informing her of inaccuracies with Theranos’ blood tests and lab instruments, and a timeline demonstrating she nevertheless pursued the technology’s commercialization.
Holmes’ own words repeatedly came back to haunt her during the trial as Schenk reiterated exaggerated claims she made and inaccurate quotes she gave to journalists. He played snippets of a recorded interview with Fortune writer Roger Parloff in which she claimed Theranos had performed work for overseas pharmaceutical companies and a few foreign governments.
A likely story.
During that same interview, Holmes also exaggerated her company’s military ties. “She went on to say that Theranos devices had been used in Afghanistan, but he [Parloff] was not to ask board member Gen. James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, about it—it was off the record, and besides, Mattis couldn’t talk about it,” The Verge reported in mid-November. “Earlier in the trial, Mattis testified that to his knowledge, Theranos devices were never used overseas.”
Or on medevac helicopters. In her testimony, Holmes admitted that Theranos devices were not used by the U.S. military— aside from one small burn study—and she denied telling anyone the blood analyzers were used on military helicopters. “I don’t think I said that,” she testified.
Holmes also acknowledged putting Pfizer and Shering-Plough letterhead on documents she sent to potential business partners and investors without the companies’ consent. Prosecutors argued she forged the documents to feign the drugmakers’ endorsement of Theranos (they actually distanced themselves from the startup), but Holmes said she was merely attempting to acknowledge other work her company had performed with the pharmaceutical giants. “I wish I’d done it differently,” she told jurors.
Despite her frank admissions, however, Holmes still refused to take full responsibility for the company’s shortcomings (even after agreeing the “buck stopped” with her). She blamed others for misinterpreting her statements about Theranos’ technology, and said she was unqualified to run a lab.
Among the scapegoats is Theranos president/COO and former boyfriend Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who will be tried on fraud charges next year. Testifying through tears on the witness stand, Holmes accused Balwani of emotionally and physically abusing her, and controlling every aspect of her life.
At one point in their relationship, Balwani allegedly compared Holmes to a “monkey trying to fly a spaceship” and suggested she change her persona. “He said that ‘who I was was never going to be a person who would succeed in life or in business, so I needed to kill that person and become a new Elizabeth,” Holmes testified, according to The Verge.
Whether Balwani actually proffered such advice will likely be revealed at his trial. If he did, though, it might help explain Holmes' penchant for duplicity.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes isn’t wasting any time contesting her guilty verdict. Barely two weeks after her Jan. 3 fraud conviction, the disgraced entrepreneur filed paperwork in federal court contesting the jury’s decision.
A legal motion filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, seeks to seal juror questionnaires from public view because their content “may be the subject of further litigation,” according to The Mercury News (San Jose). Holmes’ lawyers suspect the questionnaires could be key to overturning the 37-year-old’s fraud conviction.
Specifically, Holmes’ legal team is hoping the inquiries yield evidence of juror dishonesty, undisclosed past incidents, or other issues affecting the fairness of her trial proceedings. Lawyers for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and convicted murderer Scott Peterson are citing juror disclosure inconsistencies as justification for new trials for their clients; two jurors in Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial failed to divulge past sexual abuse to the court, while a female adjudicator in Peterson’s original 2004 murder trial falsely claimed she had never been a victim of domestic violence or subject of a lawsuit.
There currently is no indication that any of the Holmes trial jurors misrepresented themselves during the voir dire process. Holmes’ attorneys have jurors’ original questionnaires and can contact them directly or indirectly (private investigator), but at this point, counselors are probably only trying to determine whether panel members answered questions truthfully.
Just as truthfully as Holmes, perhaps?
If that’s the case, then Holmes has a shot at a new trial.
“She [Holmes] chose to be dishonest with her investors and with patients,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk (San Jose) told jurors in wrapping up the federal government’s case against Holmes on Dec. 16. “That choice was not only callous, it was criminal...The case is about false statements made to investors and false statements made to patients.”
Some of those false statements were quite blatant, too. Case in point: Holmes’ notoriously boasted that her company’s blood testing technology could run hundreds of analyses from a single drop of blood, when in reality, it could only run 12.
Quite forthcoming on Holmes’ part.
The former chief executive was equally as candid about her company’s solvency and the accuracy of its “revolutionary” blood tests. But federal prosecutors set the record straight through evidence presented at Holmes’ 15-week criminal fraud trial last fall.
Schenk, for example, showed jurors emails Holmes received informing her of inaccuracies with Theranos’ blood tests and lab instruments, and a timeline demonstrating she nevertheless pursued the technology’s commercialization.
Holmes’ own words repeatedly came back to haunt her during the trial as Schenk reiterated exaggerated claims she made and inaccurate quotes she gave to journalists. He played snippets of a recorded interview with Fortune writer Roger Parloff in which she claimed Theranos had performed work for overseas pharmaceutical companies and a few foreign governments.
A likely story.
During that same interview, Holmes also exaggerated her company’s military ties. “She went on to say that Theranos devices had been used in Afghanistan, but he [Parloff] was not to ask board member Gen. James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, about it—it was off the record, and besides, Mattis couldn’t talk about it,” The Verge reported in mid-November. “Earlier in the trial, Mattis testified that to his knowledge, Theranos devices were never used overseas.”
Or on medevac helicopters. In her testimony, Holmes admitted that Theranos devices were not used by the U.S. military— aside from one small burn study—and she denied telling anyone the blood analyzers were used on military helicopters. “I don’t think I said that,” she testified.
Holmes also acknowledged putting Pfizer and Shering-Plough letterhead on documents she sent to potential business partners and investors without the companies’ consent. Prosecutors argued she forged the documents to feign the drugmakers’ endorsement of Theranos (they actually distanced themselves from the startup), but Holmes said she was merely attempting to acknowledge other work her company had performed with the pharmaceutical giants. “I wish I’d done it differently,” she told jurors.
Despite her frank admissions, however, Holmes still refused to take full responsibility for the company’s shortcomings (even after agreeing the “buck stopped” with her). She blamed others for misinterpreting her statements about Theranos’ technology, and said she was unqualified to run a lab.
Among the scapegoats is Theranos president/COO and former boyfriend Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who will be tried on fraud charges next year. Testifying through tears on the witness stand, Holmes accused Balwani of emotionally and physically abusing her, and controlling every aspect of her life.
At one point in their relationship, Balwani allegedly compared Holmes to a “monkey trying to fly a spaceship” and suggested she change her persona. “He said that ‘who I was was never going to be a person who would succeed in life or in business, so I needed to kill that person and become a new Elizabeth,” Holmes testified, according to The Verge.
Whether Balwani actually proffered such advice will likely be revealed at his trial. If he did, though, it might help explain Holmes' penchant for duplicity.