Elizabeth Holmes convicted of fraud

[Ed.Kloonk]

And this time will then be deducted from the jail term.

We recently had an ex-pollie finally get sentenced for some corruption/conpirisy offences committed well over 10 years ago.

Because I was bored and under-utilized, I tuned into the hearing. The Justice and the prosecutor spent nearly two hours going back and forth on the duration of imprisonment because the legislation for the offence is as vague as shit.

Neither one wanted to stick their neck out and suggest a sentence because the justice has to follow the law, vague as it is without pulling a harsh sentence out of thin air, and the prosecution has to recommend to the judge what the law says, not just what they would wish for.

Two hours. Half a dozen 5 min adjournments. They decided on 7 years. With an appeal due to be heard in Sept.

[Halcyon]

There is no such thing as an "untested" or "unproven" vaccine that has been rolled out to the general population. All of the major brands have undergone the same rigorous testing as any other vaccine for other illnesses. If you think otherwise, you need a reality check. I find it quite insulting that normal, everyday people seem to think they know more than the experts. Facts are facts, whether or not you agree with them.

As Dave said, any more nonsense posts like this and they are getting deleted and this thread locked.

Halcyon, this was three days ago and fully dropped after Dave said what he said. Why would you bring that up again just to pontificate your opinion? Per consistency of the rules, your post is the one that should be deleted.

Because it was reported to moderators today. Also, I wasn't providing an opinion.

[SilverSolder]

And this time will then be deducted from the jail term.

We recently had an ex-pollie finally get sentenced for some corruption/conpirisy offences committed well over 10 years ago.

Because I was bored and under-utilized, I tuned into the hearing. The Justice and the prosecutor spent nearly two hours going back and forth on the duration of imprisonment because the legislation for the offence is as vague as shit.

Neither one wanted to stick their neck out and suggest a sentence because the justice has to follow the law, vague as it is without pulling a harsh sentence out of thin air, and the prosecution has to recommend to the judge what the law says, not just what they would wish for.

Two hours. Half a dozen 5 min adjournments. They decided on 7 years. With an appeal due to be heard in Sept.

7 years is a pretty amazing sentence for a Western politician, lol...

[oPossum]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-jury-convicts-theranos-sunny-balwani-fraud-2022-07-07/

A U.S. jury on Thursday convicted former Theranos Inc President Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani of defrauding investors and patients about the blood testing startup that was once valued at $9 billion.

Balwani was convicted on two counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office confirmed.

[MrMobodies]

Around 20 Years in jail.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61902378

Both Holmes, 38, and Balwani, 57, will be sentenced by a judge in the autumn. Holmes is facing *around 20 years in prison and is currently free on bail. Balwani also faces *up to 20 years in prison as well as millions of dollars in restitution payments to his victims.

*I wonder what the "Up to" and "around 20 years" will amount to?

Does that mean they could just be jailed for 20 years each but could be let out at any time inbetween the sentences?

[nctnico]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-jury-convicts-theranos-sunny-balwani-fraud-2022-07-07/

A U.S. jury on Thursday convicted former Theranos Inc President Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani of defrauding investors and patients about the blood testing startup that was once valued at $9 billion.

Balwani was convicted on two counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office confirmed.

Interestingly he got convicted for more 'criminal acts' than Ms Holmes

[Simon]

In the UK you can get banned from being a director for up to 15 years. For cases like this it should be a life ban.

[SiliconWizard]

I wish more CEOs would get banned as well.

[Bud]

Do not kid youself, noone of them will serve 20 years.

[Peter Taylor]

I believe that I should offer my skills and services for the betterment of society.

Its Ok to have $$$. Its not OK to have it at the expense of others.

[floobydust]

These criminals are master manipulators, made of teflon. I can't see a decent amount of jail time for her as Balwani is the fall guy for the whole thing.

[SiliconWizard]

Who manipulated investors more massively? Her alone or those above journals?

[ebastler]

Love it how the "Inc." title pictures her next to the headline "How to build a company to last 100 years". 

[magic]

Tells you a thing or two about the quality of so-called "journalism"

21st century America is all hype and no substance anymore.

[rsjsouza]

Tells you a thing or two about the quality of so-called "journalism"

21st century America is all hype and no substance anymore.

Fortunately such journalism is losing ground daily, especially with the BS of the past two years. Still has power and will take time, but it is coming down.

About the sentencing, it is statistically coherent that the guy has the bigger fall.

[Gregg]

Do not kid youself, noone of them will serve 20 years.

Bernard Ebbers of Worldcom Worldcon fame and misfortune was sentenced to 25 years but was let out a month or so before he croaked saving the tax payers from burying him after serving about 17 of those years.
I guess the point is that he didn't have a chance for more fraud after he was released. 

[MrMobodies]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/elizabeth-holmes-dealt-blow-judge-183435671.html?guccounter=1
Business Insider

Elizabeth Holmes is dealt a blow as the judge in her fraud case tentatively denied her request to throw out her conviction
Sarah Jackson Fri, 2 September 2022, 7:34 pm·2-min read

Elizabeth Holmes just faced a setback in her attempt to have her guilty verdict thrown out.

On Thursday, the judge in the Theranos founder's fraud case tentatively denied her request to overturn her conviction.

This means she's one step closer to facing prison time at her October sentencing. Elizabeth Holmes is a step closer to getting time in prison for her fraud at Theranos after her Hail Mary attempt to have her conviction thrown out was denied. In May, Holmes had asked the federal judge in her case, Edward Davila, to overturn her guilty verdict on counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. She argued that there was "insufficient evidence" for any "rational juror" to convict. On Thursday, Holmes appeared in court again as Davila heard from attorneys on the prosecution and defense regarding the matter.

In January, Holmes was found guilty on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, following a months-long trial that gripped Silicon Valley. One of Holmes' attorneys, Amy Saharia, argued, "We don't believe the evidence shows Ms. Holmes made misrepresentations or half-truths," as Bloomberg reported. Holmes' team also said there wasn't enough evidence to show that Holmes intended to defraud patients and investors or that she conspired to do so with her ex-boyfriend and Theranos' former president and COO, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani.

Davila disagreed, upholding Holmes' conviction in a preliminary ruling. "The court finds that looking at this through the lens most favorable to the prosecution," the evidence "does support the jury's findings in this case," he said, per Bloomberg. A request to toss out a conviction is common from defendants in white-collar cases, like Holmes. They're also usually denied. In July, following a separate trial, Balwani was convicted on all 12 charges against him, including 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Holmes' sentencing is scheduled for October 17, and Balwani's is set for November 15. Each could face up to 20 years in prison for each count on which they were convicted.

Read the original article on Business Insider
[url]https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-judge-denies-her-request-to-toss-conviction-2022-9[/url]

How much more evidence do they need?

So what she calls "insufficient" must mean that the jurors who convicted here are crazy.

How would she know there is insufficient evidence in the first place?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/24/elizabeth-holmes-denies-destroying-evidence-in-theranos-case.html

Elizabeth Holmes denies destroying evidence in Theranos case
PUBLISHED TUE, FEB 23 2021 11:30 PM ESTUPDATED WED, FEB 24 20216:51 AM EST
Yasmin Khorram

However, prosecutors allege that Theranos executives destroyed the LIS system that proved her blood-testing product was inaccurate.

In a filing last month, the government said that three months after a federal grand jury issued a subpoena for a copy of the database in August 2018, “the LIS was destroyed.” They wrote that “the government has never been provided with the complete records contained in the LIS, nor been given the tools, which were available within the database, to search for such critical evidence as all Theranos blood tests with validation errors. The data disappeared”

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/first-witnesses-elizabeth-holmes-fraud-trial-say-theranos-manipulated-lab-data-inflated

MEDTECH
First witnesses in Elizabeth Holmes' fraud trial say Theranos manipulated lab data, inflated revenue projections
By Andrea ParkSep 16, 2021 01:12pm

The first two witnesses took the stand this week in former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ federal fraud trial, both former employees of the disgraced blood-testing startup who mapped out the corners they say were regularly cut in the lab, the boardroom and beyond.Witness testimony begins after the prosecution and defense traded opening statements last week. To start, the prosecution described Holmes as a bloodthirsty leader (pun very much intended) who knowingly lied to investors, partners and patients about the capabilities of Theranos’ benchtop blood-testing machine, all in pursuit of fame and fortune. Holmes’ defense, meanwhile, sketched out their plans to paint her as a young, first-time CEO who, though relentlessly optimistic about her vision, was ill-equipped to deal with the many roadblocks that cropped up throughout Theranos’ life span. They’ve also suggested that her decision-making abilities were further stunted by the allegedly manipulative and controlling behavior of Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and former Theranos Chief Operating Officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who has issued a blanket denial of those claims.

At stake in the trial are 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each of which carries a fine of at least $250,000. Holmes faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison, as will Balwani when his trial begins for the same 12 counts next year, once Holmes’ is complete. First to take the stand: Danise Yam, who served as Theranos’ financial controller for over a decade. Though she was initially sworn in last Wednesday in the short time left in that day’s allotted time after opening statements, the bulk of her testimony came when the trial resumed Sept. 14. In it, Yam testified that Theranos took in no annual revenue at all in 2012 or 2013, according to Forbes, and that she had projected revenues that maxed out at $132 million in 2016. That’s in stark contrast to materials given to investors estimating that the company would draw $140 million in revenue in 2014, for example, and a whopping $900 million the following year—numbers that Yam said she hadn’t come up with.

She also detailed total losses of $585 million between 2003 and 2015, noting that even as money became increasingly tight, Theranos continued to burn through millions per week and, in 2015, saw Holmes’ salary double to $400,000. In the 2015 tax return listing the company’s $585 million lifetime deficit, Theranos reported just $429,000 in revenue. Despite those losses, Yam explained how Theranos continued to induce investors to buy 530 million shares of private stock between 2014 and 2015, during which the share price surged from 17 cents to $17, bringing in a total of more than $944 million.Next up was Erika Cheung, who worked as a Theranos lab associate for less than a year in 2013 and 2014, then turned federal whistleblower after witnessing and being asked to conduct what she described as fraudulent practices in the startup’s labs.

She recalled those practices to jurors on Tuesday and Wednesday. After joining the company fresh out of college and excited to work for a CEO hailed as a visionary, Cheung said she quickly became disillusioned. At one point, per the The New York Times, she underwent a blood test using its device and was told she had a vitamin D deficiency that no other test had identified. Despite Holmes’ dream of running hundreds of blood tests on the Edison analyzers simultaneously, Cheung said that in reality, they were only ever able to run a maximum of 12 tests at once. Instead, she testified, most of their tests were run on other companies’ devices. Her confidence in Theranos’ mission waned further when, during quality control tests, she regularly witnessed lab workers deleting up to two of six data points to remove outliers and make the results seem more positive.

When shown a chart suggesting that about one-quarter of the blood tests run on Theranos’ devices failed quality control, according to CNBC, Cheung pointed out that testing machines that are cleared by the FDA (unlike Theranos’) rarely fail those protocols. “You’d have about the same luck flipping a coin as to whether your results were right or wrong,” she said. “It was concerning to see this degree of failure—this was not typical for a normal lab.” In response, Holmes’ defense team claimed Cheung had only minimal interactions with the CEO and, as Cheung confirmed, never brought up these issues with Holmes directly. They also presented documents signing off on the results of those quality control tests for regulators, noting that Holmes wasn’t one of the signers.

That evidence echoes the defense’s claims in its opening statements that Holmes wasn’t privy to many of the regulatory issues within Theranos’ labs, which they say were instead the responsibility of the lab directors and Balwani, who was reportedly in charge of overseeing the facilities. Much like the failed startup at its core, Holmes’ trial has been plagued by issues. For one thing, it began more than a year after its scheduled kickoff date, thanks to a handful of delays caused by the defense team’s need for more time to review the evidence, then by the COVID-19 pandemic and finally, in March, by Holmes’ pregnancy. Even now that it’s begun, however, the trial’s path has been far from smooth. After last Wednesday’s opening statements, the trial was scheduled to resume Friday but was forced to take a hiatus after a juror reported possible exposure to COVID. Then, once proceedings restarted on Tuesday, another juror had to be excused after learning that her employer wouldn’t compensate her throughout her participation in the trial, which is expected to stretch until January 2022.

Barring any further interruptions, the jurors will continue to hear from witnesses drawn from a list of hundreds. The star-studded roster includes past champions of Theranos like Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch as well as healthcare leaders like Eric Topol, M.D., and former Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, M.D., who were cautiously optimistic of the company’s proposed technology. Holmes, her parents and her brother could also be called to testify. According to The Wall Street Journal, the likely next witness will be Daniel Edlin. The former Theranos project manager may be asked to shed some light on claims the company made about its technology to eventual partner Walgreens and the U.S. Department of Defense—with whom the company never had any revenue-generating contracts, Yam testified, contradicting the claims of a profitable partnership that Holmes allegedly made to investors.

The fact that she manipulated a lot of things along with Balwani and now say not enough evidence.

It reminds me of one of Columbo's old television dramas where he either had this watch repaired or presented a similar one (can't remember all the details or what series it was) that was suppose to belong to a victim. So he kept a few people behind and ask them what they thought of it. Now the killer knew that watch was damaged and therefore thought it couldn't be the same exact watch of the victim that he murdered and reacted.

[rsjsouza]

Not only that but how can someone supposedly broken financially have a "team" of lawyers and go through such long line of appeals to try to circumvent condemnation?

Either family or the new husband are being manipulated or she hid a lot of the money amassed during the fraudulent operation to pay for all that. Common people like you and me would never have such resources.

[Stray Electron]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-jury-convicts-theranos-sunny-balwani-fraud-2022-07-07/

A U.S. jury on Thursday convicted former Theranos Inc President Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani of defrauding investors and patients about the blood testing startup that was once valued at $9 billion.

Balwani was convicted on two counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office confirmed.

Interestingly he got convicted for more 'criminal acts' than Ms Holmes

    That's not surprising.  At least in the US, women always seem to get convicted of fewer charges and get lighter sentences than men do, even when both are involved in exactly the same crime. Legally, that's not supposed to happen but if you watch the verdicts and the sentences in very many court cases you'll see that it does in nearly ALL cases.

    And don't kid yourselves, in the US "up to 20 years" means that they will be eligible for parole in 7 years and will almost certainly get it unless that they behave very badly while in prison.

[rsjsouza]

Interestingly he got convicted for more 'criminal acts' than Ms Holmes

That's not surprising. At least in the US, women always seem to get are convicted of fewer charges and get lighter sentences than men do, even when both are involved in exactly the same crime. Legally, that's not supposed to happen but if you watch the verdicts and the sentences in very many court cases you'll see that it does in nearly ALL cases.

FTFY. That's the "patriarchy" working in favour of men

And don't kid yourselves, in the US "up to 20 years" means that they will be eligible for parole in 7 years and will almost certainly get it unless that they behave very badly while in prison.

That is pretty much everywhere and it has been since immemorial times... The one who has money has access to all the perks the law grants them.

[AVGresponding]

Not only that but how can someone supposedly broken financially have a "team" of lawyers and go through such long line of appeals to try to circumvent condemnation?

Either family or the new husband are being manipulated or she hid a lot of the money amassed during the fraudulent operation to pay for all that. Common people like you and me would never have such resources.

Wouldn't surprise me if they were doing it "on spec" due to the fact of the incredible exposure it grants them.

[SiliconWizard]

Not only that but how can someone supposedly broken financially have a "team" of lawyers and go through such long line of appeals to try to circumvent condemnation?

Either family or the new husband are being manipulated or she hid a lot of the money amassed during the fraudulent operation to pay for all that. Common people like you and me would never have such resources.

Wouldn't surprise me if they were doing it "on spec" due to the fact of the incredible exposure it grants them.

Definitely. And as we know, this kind of trials are going to be more and more common with the explosion of dodgy startups, so there's so much business to be done here that it's probably worth doing some for little money just to reap the benefits later on.

[PlainName]

doing it "on spec"

Pro bono. Most US practices are encouraged to do ~50hrs/yr, but it's typically done for those on low incomes or poverty-stricken clients who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it.

the incredible exposure it grants them

There is that, but it would look even better if they were on the winning side

Still, they haven't yet completely given up, and if they manage to rescue something from an obviously lost cause that could be a big plus.

[AVGresponding]

doing it "on spec"

Pro bono. Most US practices are encouraged to do ~50hrs/yr, but it's typically done for those on low incomes or poverty-stricken clients who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it.

the incredible exposure it grants them

There is that, but it would look even better if they were on the winning side

Still, they haven't yet completely given up, and if they manage to rescue something from an obviously lost cause that could be a big plus.

"On spec" or "on a speculative basis" is basically shorthand for "no win no fee". As for winning or losing, you might be surprised at how little that matters. It only really matters if you lose an "easy win", which this is quite obviously not. In this instance the performance of the defence lawyers will be judged by their peers on how long they manage to drag things out.

[PlainName]

OK