Theranos Boss Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty of Four Counts of Wire Fraud
Posted on 01/04/2022
Elizabeth Holmes (age 37), the former CEO of Theranos, was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud by a jury in San Jose. This is over Theranos, the failed blood testing start-up. Holmes was faced with 11 criminal charges alleging that she duped investors and patients. Holmes was found not guilty on four counts of defrauding patients, and the jury was deadlocked on three other charges related to investor fraud.
Elizabeth Holmes raised more than US$ 900 million from a list of renowned investors that included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, software mogul Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation, the Kraft family, the Cox family, Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, DeVos family, and the Walton family behind Walmart Inc. Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison as well as fines. The Theranos case has attracted worldwide attention, generating podcast content and documentaries filmed.
“She chose fraud over business failure. She chose to be dishonest,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk said at the start of closing arguments.
At Theranos’ zenith, Elizabeth Holmes had amassed a fortune of US$ 4.5 billion on paper and was being projected as a healthcare visionary on cover stories in business magazines such as Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Forbes. The company was at one point valued by its investors at US$ 9 billion.
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19. Washington, D.C., heavyweights like George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Frist, and James “Jim” Mattis joined Theranos’s Board of Directors. In September 2013, Theranos landed a noteworthy deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance. Holmes and Ramesh Balwani overstated Theranos’s business deals, telling investors that the company would generate US$ 1 billion in revenue in 2015; however, Theranos made only a few hundred thousand dollars. Facing multiple civil and criminal federal investigations, Theranos evaporated in 2018.
Keywords: Walton Enterprises LLC.
