(Bloomberg) — After three months of testimony by almost three dozen witnesses, jurors in Elizabeth Holmes’s fraud trial will have plenty to think about as they weigh whether the Theranos Inc. founder was a well-intentioned dreamer or a conniving huckster.
Here are some stand-out moments from the trial in San Jose, California:
-
Holmes jolted the courtroom when she gave tearful testimony that she was raped while at Stanford University and went on to suffer emotional and sexual abuse for a decade by Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her boyfriend who was also the president of Theranos. While Balwani has denied the abuse claims, he wasn’t in the courtroom to defend himself because he faces a separate trial next year over the same fraud charges. “He impacted everything about who I was, and I don’t fully understand that,” Holmes told the jury.
- Holmes conceded one of the government’s most damning allegations when she admitted on the witness stand she didn’t have permission to apply logos from two pharmaceutical giants on reports shared with prospective investors that conveyed support by the drug companies for her startup. “I wish I could have done it differently,” Holmes testified.
- The jury was shown an assortment of text messages between Holmes and Balwani, including many expressions of love like “Missing u in every breath and in every cell” (Balwani) and “Ditto” (Holmes). Also introduced as evidence was a set of notes Holmes wrote for herself on hotel stationery that included business rules that she said were prescribed by Balwani: “I am never a minute late” and “I show no excitement.”
-
Adam Rosendorff testified that just months into his job as the lab director at Theranos, he emailed Holmes about his concerns that the company’s blood analyzers weren’t ready for an imminent commercial roll-out at Walgreens drug stores. “I was raising the alarm bells,” Rosendorff told jurors. “I felt it was important for Elizabeth to be aware of these issues as the chief executive of the company.”
-
Retired General James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, testified that he joined the company’s board because he admired the young entrepreneur and was captivated by her promise to revolutionize blood testing, only to be disappointed later when the shortcomings of the Silicon Valley startup’s technology were revealed. “There became a point when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore,” Mattis said. “Looking back now I’m disappointed in the level of transparency.”
-
Daniel Mosley, an estate lawyer for Henry Kissinger, revealed that he helped Theranos line up investments totaling $370 million from some of the wealthiest families in the U.S. — the Waltons, the Coxes, the Oppenheimers and the DeVoses — four years before the company collapsed. “I didn’t think I had inaccurate information,” Mosley said. “It was a risk I was a willing to take based on what I knew.”
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
