The one who was the 'darling' of Silicon Valley, Elizabeth Holmes, 38, went to the San Jose (California) court this Friday on the day of her final trial to ask for clemency for her and her family. She has a child who is just over a year old and is pregnant. "I did not try to disappoint, just try new businesses," argued this woman who broke the mold at the age of 19 as the great innovator. Judge Ed Davila sentenced her to 135 months (just over 11 years) for the Theranos case, the blood test startup she founded and which, according to the prosecutor, was a scam, for which he requested 15 years in prison.
Looking at the judge, Holmes burst into tears and assured that she only wanted Theranos to contribute to making the world better. "Every day I feel like I've failed, in every cell of my body, and I'm sorry for the people I hurt, if I could go back in time, you would do things in a totally different way," she begged, still crying. throughout his speech.
Pleas not answered. The judge set April 27 as the date for his delivery, gave him a period of 14 days in case he wants to appeal the sentence and indicated that the court will set the date of a new hearing to determine restitution to the injured parties.
The maximum sentence in his case could be up to 20 years in prison. Given her family situation, the convicted fraudster's lawyers requested that she be sentenced to probation, without imprisonment, or in any case, that the sentence not exceed 18 months in prison.
This final journey came after Holmes was found guilty by a jury a few months ago on four counts of defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars by falsely claiming that only a few drops of blood were required with her system. Not only was it reliable, but this technology would also allow users to perform these tests at home with absolute reliability, without the need to go to hospitals or outpatient clinics. Behind all this publicity, she actually launched her business by relying on traditional machines.
In 2014 it was estimated that Theranos had a value of 9,000 million dollars, much more than what Spotify or Uber reached then. Holmes aroused passions. Shortly after the company began to fall apart and it was discovered that there was nothing, no invention, no money.
The story of Holmes, an eccentric technology leader who at her peak was compared to none other than Steve Jobs, the genius of Apple, aroused enormous media interest. Its rapid rise and fall have spawned books, movies, and television series that have attempted to understand one of the great frauds.
The prosecution described Holmes' crime in court as one of the "most substantial white-collar crimes ever seen." She, with remorse for what she caused, replied that he "never wanted to disappoint anyone, he only wanted to achieve innovation." Her lawyers argued that the punished persecuted went far beyond the failure of a startup.
Prosecutor John Bostic urged a harsh sentence for Holmes's reckless behavior, which caused harm to patients. She publicized her great invention, although, Bostic insisted, she applied that device on people knowing that her result was unreliable. Based on the testimony of former Theranos members, who testified from the stand that these devices were not reliable, the prosecutor drew a conclusion. "She was aware that it didn't work well enough," he said. Defense attorney Kevin Downey said Theranos performed more than eight million blood tests, with some errors expected.
“They don't put people like me in jail,” according to a charging document that records a conversation Holmes had in 2010 with a Walgreens consultant. This comment took place, in a video conference, after that consultant warned him that he could be responsible for the death of people if his laboratory produced bad test results.
The final decision rested exclusively with Judge Ed Davila, who presided over the oral hearing against Holmes, as well as the separate trial of Ramsesh 'Sunnty' Balwani, his partner and former lover, who also received a guilty verdict and will be sentenced. next month.
At her trial, the jury acquitted Holmes of fraud regarding the patients who may have suffered the consequences of her "invention" but convicted her of misleading investors. The prosecutor, however, insisted that the patients who used this incorrect blood test is a factor that must be taken as an aggravating factor when passing sentence. The judge responded that she could not apply that factor because the verdict acquitted her of that crime.
Against her incarceration, this woman's legal team delivered 130 letters from friends, family and others who have supported her, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ. "We are all more than the worst thing we have ever done," the senator remarked in his text. Billy Evans, Holmes' partner, wrote to the judge about the terrible impact the case could have on her family and stressed that she has already paid a high price for the notoriety of the case. "Please release her," she begged.
Holmes dropped out of Stanford University in his sophomore year but by 2003 had a team of 800, with Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani as president as of 2009. Six years later, Theranos was valued at $9 billion and had raised more than 800 million from investors.
Air began to enter the bubble in 2015. John Carreyrou, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, published information in which he revealed that this analysis technology did not work. Many of the tests were carried out at Walgreens, one of the investors, with the usual method.
She denied everything. "This is what happens when you work to change things," she replied on CNBC in October of that year. “First they think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then you change the world,” she added.
He failed to stop the fall and sinking. The federal food and drug agency (FDA) opened an inquiry. Walgreens sued Theranos for $140 million. Holmes and Balwani reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve allegations of massive fraud. Theranos closed in 2018, without a penny, and the Prosecutor's Office raised the criminal accusation.
