Mitali Palnitkar
Published On: January 04, 2022 at 20:12 IST
Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on four counts of Fraud and Conspiracy by the Federal Jury in California. This ended the lengthy Trial that had captivated the Silicon Valley.
The four counts of Fraud that Holmes committed include three counts of Wire Fraud and one count of Conspiracy to commit a Wire Fraud.
Holmes had been charged with eleven counts of Fraud. She had allegedly made claims to the investors and the patients of Theranos, which is Holmes’ Silicon Valley blood testing company. While she was found guilty for four of the eleven counts, she was found not guilty of another four counts. The Jury was deadlocked on the remaining three counts.
Holmes will be sentenced on a later date but has to face a sentence of up to 20 years in the Federal Prison.
During the Trial, the Attorney for Holmes, Kevin Downey tried to portray that she was naive and did not wish to defraud the investors.
Besides being accused of misleading the patients and physicians about the Theranos Blood tests, she was also accuses of lying to the investors about her company generating high revenue.
In 2014, Holmes had falsely claimed to the investors that Theranos had a technology that could run several medical tests by using only a few blood drops. In 2015, a media publication had reported that the machines sold by Holmes were not working and provided fake positive test results. In 2018, Holmes was investigated by the Federal Authorities.
Holmes stated in her defence that her judgment was clouded as she was allegedly abused sexually, psychologically and emotionally during her relationship with the Former Executive of Theranos, Ramesh Balwani who is also charged with Fraud and Conspiracy and will be tried separately.