On Tuesday, a jury was to hear the closing arguments in the trial against Ramesh Balwani, a former executive at Theranos, who is accused of conspiring with Elizabeth Holmes, his secret lover, to commit a huge fraud.
Three months of testimony and evidence were mirrored in the case against Holmes last year. Holmes was convicted of four counts defrauding investors, but she was also acquitted of four counts alleging that she deceived patients who had submitted to Theranos blood testing.
Holmes, 38, is released on $500,000 bail. He faces up to 20 year imprisonment and a $250,000 penalty on each count. However, federal sentencing guidelines state that any sentence would be concurrent, not sequentially. If Balwani is convicted, he will face the same sentence. Holmes awaits sentencing in September.
Lawyers for Balwani (57) have described him as an entrepreneur and well-intentioned investor who was appointed Theranos’ chief operating officers in 2010. Holmes then swindled him. He was later resigned as her lover and businesspartner in 2016, as Theranos started to fall apart.
Balwani had already contributed $15 million to Theranos before Holmes appointed him as Holmes’ top lieutenant. Balwani’s Theranos investment eventually grew to $500 million. His lawyers said he never sold the stake. The company’s collapse made it worthless.
Prosecutors portray Balwani, a complicit in Holmes’s frauds, as a ruthless accomplice. They alleged that Balwani, a non-medical graduate, was in charge of Theranos’ blood-testing lab. This could have put patients at risk.
In the beginning stages of the trial, Robert Leach stated that “Mr. Balwani and Ms. Holmes were partners in almost everything.” Holmes and the defendant knew that the falsehoods they told investors were not true to Theranos reality.
Holmes’ bold claims about Theranos made her a Silicon Valley superstar. She also became a billionaire with a $4.5 billion paper fortune based on her success in fundraising and brokering deals. Her promise to revolutionize healthcare was what made Holmes a star. Holmes claimed that Theranos had created a technology that could detect more than 200 possible health issues by using a few drops blood.
Balwani started dating Holmes when she founded Theranos. Then, Balwani started giving Holmes business advice. Their relationship was the focus of “The Dropout,” a Hulu TV series about Holmes’ rise to and fall. It was released just before the trial started, making it difficult for jurors to choose an impartial jury.
Holmes testified at her trial and at one point, she cried out that Balwani was a controlling figure in her life and had subjected her sexual and emotional abuse. Holmes’ trial saw one of Balwani’s attorneys strongly deny these allegations. Balwani’s attorneys have asked jurors at the current trial not to recall Holmes’ allegations.
Rumours circulated that Holmes might be returning to court to give evidence against Balwani, but this never happened. Balwani, unlike Holmes, chose not to testify in his own defense during the trial.
