CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud

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LinasK said:
Why??? Is this their way of showing support for her?
Click to expand...
That's no doubt what they would claim.

I suspect there is more to it, along the lines of the psychology of cults/idol worship/martyrs/injustice collectors. I'm sure I saw one of the reply tweets on Dorothy Atkins' twitter say that apparently Charles Manson had lookalike fans at his trial as well, but now I can't find it. MOO
 
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Hello everyone. For those who're unable to following the trial live and will be following this thread instead, I will post all tweets from Dorothy Atkins so you can read what's happening in the courtroom on a daily basis. (If I'm stepping on anyone's toes, my sincere apologies.) :)

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
19h

T-12 hours before opening statements in U.S. v. Elizabeth Holmes and as of today, both sides filed their witness lists. Prosecutors named 181 (!) witnesses, including Rupert Murdoch, James Mattis, Henry Kissinger and David Boies.

xwJ7Ygrn



Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
9h

It’s 6 a.m. and I’m outside the federal courthouse in San Jose, where there is a lively crowd of press and random members of the public who showed up for openings in U.S. v Elizabeth Holmes today. The word is Holmes arrived at 1:30 am - likely to avoid all these cameras.

E-w9v5MVgAUF6fL
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
9h

John Carreyrou is here, eating a muffin, as are a few college kids who are interested in trials and the case. There are about 20-30 members of the press and many of them are chit-chatting. I’m still waiting for my coffee to kick in.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
9h

The courthouse gates opened and to my surprise everybody seems to have complied with the number system that one early riser came up with to keep the line fair. So far, this has been much more civilized than the ruthless chaos of the press line before day 1 of jury selection.

E-xDsCZUYAItLDY


Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
8h

There are three women in front of me in line with blonde hair wearing black business suits. When asked why they’re here, one replied “we’re fans,” and they declined to comment further.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
8h

The courthouse is about to open and the line is much, much longer than an hour ago.

E-xQnJ1VQAEx8Y1
 
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Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
8h

Holmes’ defense attorneys have all arrived at the courthouse - there’s no sign of Elizabeth Holmes herself, aside from the three look-alikes in front of me.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
7h

Elizabeth Holmes has arrived at the courthouse and is surrounded by cameras. Three of her fans try to catch a glimpse without losing their spot in line.

E-xZmqsUUAgjbBq


Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
7h

6 am apparently wasn’t early enough to get a seat in the main courtroom but at least the overflow room has outlets. The three black-suited women made it in.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
7h

Judge Davila is on the bench. He's reminding each side that they need to object during trial and not outside the presence of the jury. The judge sounds congested, but maybe that's just me...

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
7h

Prosecutors say they expect their opening statements today to go 45-50 minutes, while Holmes' counsel say openings will be "about two hours."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
7h

The judge is taking a quick break to call in the jury. Meanwhile, the line outside is still very long. Many of these folks will be turned away because there aren’t enough seats in either courtroom.

E-xk9kdVIAc5TlY
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

Judge Davila is back on the bench. He says juror number 7 - who is 19-years-old - said her employer won't pay her for jury service. The judge called her into the courtroom and she says she has to work to help her mom pay bills.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

This particular juror said during voir dire her father died four years ago. She's now telling the judge she works part-time in customer service, and the judge is pressing her, but she says she doesn't think she can't shift her schedule.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

The attorneys suggest that Juror No. 7 continue to serve today and decide at the end of the day whether to excuse her. The judge agrees and says he'll ask the juror to call her boss during a break to try to shift her schedule. "Maybe that will solve things," the judge says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

The judge called in the jury and he's instructing them, which should take a few before openings. Holmes is at defense counsel table, wearing a grey (black?) jacket and mask and she's sitting up straight, holding her hands together, resting them on top of the table.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

The judge wraps jury instructions noting that the jury should not speculate why the gov't case against Balwani is not at issue in this trial. With that, prosecutor Robert Leach is up with openings.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

Prosecutor says Holmes was "out of time and out of money" in 2009 w/ not enough cash to pay Theranos workers, so "Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie" to Walgreens and Safeway in order get money they "desperately needed."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

Prosecutor says Holmes sold the idea of miniature blood-testing devices to Safeway and Walgreens, even though FDA was 'nowhere near' approving Theranos' devices. So instead, Theranos used Siemens Advia 1800 machines, which cost $100k to do the tests.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

Prosecutor says in 2013, Theranos only had $15 million in cash and was spending $1-2 million weekly. Instead of delaying the device launch, he says Holmes and Balwani went ahead with the launch and got the WSJ to run a 'false and misleading' story on the devices in Sept 2013.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
6h

Prosecutor says Holmes and Balwani "reviewed and approved" a Wall Street Journal article on Theranos' blood-testing technology in 2013, and then went on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in two years, in part by 'enginer[ing]' news articles hyping the company's tech.
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says Holmes and Balwani lied to investors about Theranos providing miniature blood analyzers to the military to be used on military helicopters in remote parts of the world. He says Theranos only ever had 1 $250k military contract in 2010 for a burn study in Texas.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says Holmes doctored a Pfizer report about Theranos devices claiming it had "superior performance" to draw in investors, even though Pfizer never made the report. He says the co made zero revenues in 2012 and 2013, and only $150k in 2014.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says despite the low revs, Holmes was telling investors as late as Oct 2014 that Theranos would raise $140 million that year, "but Theranos ... was nowhere near achieving the revenue projections defendant was peddling."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says in June 2014, Holmes appeared on the cover of Fortune Magazine and was profiled in a story called "Out for Blood" before "a number of investments you’ll hear about." That article helped her and Balwani raise more money, he says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says the jury will hear from ex-Theranos workers who saw problems with the blood-tests and reported the issues to CMS. They will also hear from women who received false pregnancy test results and evidence that "Elizabeth Holmes was well aware of the problem," he says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says Holmes was "not an absentee CEO, she sweated the details," and she was in a relationship with Sunny Balwani, the COO, who lent the company money in 2009 to stay open.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Prosecutor says the jury will hear from Theranos' 3 former lab directors: Adam Rosendorff, "who Balwani forced out," Sunil Dhawan "Balwani's dermitologist," and Kingshuk Das, who was hired after "investors started asking questions."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

With that, the gov't wrapped its opening statement. For the feds to have a 181-person witness list, I'm pretty surprised openings were under an hour.
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Lance Wade is up for Holmes. He starts saying "Elizabeth Holmes did not go to work every day to lie, cheat and steal. The government would have you believe that her company - that her entire life - is a fraud. That is wrong. That is not true."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade: "Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing cheaper and more accessible. She poured her heart and soul into that effort. In the end, Theranos failed and Ms. Holmes walked away with nothing, but failure is not a crime."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade recalls that Holmes started Theranos at 19, and he shows the jury a picture of a presumably 19-yr-old Holmes smiling. (She looks like she has red hair in the pic for some reason.)

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade says Holmes "was not alone," and she was surrounded by a team of talented individuals who worked to revolutionize blood testing. He says Theranos hired many people, obtained 176 patents and created 235 specialized tests that could be run on small samples of blood.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade says Theranos conducted 8 mil blood tests at a fraction of the cost competitors charged. He points to testimonials praising the tests for being affordable, and says 98% surveyed said they'd use it again. "It was real, it was innovative, and Theranos became a valuable co."
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade says Holmes was "all in" on Theranos, motivated by its mission, "not money," and she never sold a single Theranos share, even though she could have cashed out at any moment.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade repeatedly says failure is not a crime, and "Ms. Holmes made mistakes," by "naively underestimating" business obstacles Theranos couldn't overcome, "but mistakes are not a crime."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade says the government is looking at Theranos "through a dirty lens" but the reality is "far more complicated," "far more human, more real and ... technical and complicated and boring."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

Wade on the presumption of innocence: "Ms. Holmes sits there today in this courtroom innocent. She’s innocent... whatever is written or said about her before today is gone."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
5h

The court is taking the usual 11 a.m. break. Standby...
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

During the trial break, I discovered I missed the meter maid by 5 minutes and got a parking ticket because of course I did. "Sir, I object."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

We're back, and juror 7 told the clerk her boss won't be back until Friday. "We'll chat with her again at the break when we finish," the judge says and calls in the jury. Judge Davila definitely sounds like he's congested, wondering if he is fighting er, um a cold.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade says Holmes isn't from Silicon Valley, but lives here now w/ her partner, "Billy," who is in the courtroom, and her child. Her mom is also in the courtroom. (It's unclear to me if Holmes' baby is in the courtroom - I'm in the overflow room & can't see who's in the gallery.)

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade makes a brief reference to Mark Zuckerberg, and says Holmes moved to Silicon Valley as a Stanford University undergrad in the fall of 2002 and "this was an obvious destination for someone with her interests."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade says during college, Holmes worked abroad doing "entry level work" on the SARS virus that was "not glamorous" at the Genome Institute. When she returned, she filed a patent app in sept 2003 for genome testing, he says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade says Holmes met Sunny Balwani when Holmes was 18-years-old in China and Balwani was 37. "You'll hear certain aspects of that relationship had an impact on Ms. Holmes," Wade says. He adds that "trusting and relying on Balwani as her primary advisor was one of her mistakes."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade says Theranos developed assays, hardware and software "from scratch." He says people take app dev for granted, b/c nowadays "teenage kids are doing it in their bedroom, but back then apps were new," and it took Theranos years to develop software needed to run the devices.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade is hinting at Holmes' abuse defense. He says Balwani's "drive helped push the company forward." But he had a temper, and would "lash out," which led many Theranos employees to leave the company "oftentimes on bad terms," Wade sense.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
4h

Wade says Theranos had no retail experience or regulatory approvals, and Holmes had an idea, but was only 25-years-old. "Most retailers could see that," he says, but Walgreens and Safeway "were more daring, or maybe more desperate to go after these services."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade says investors funded Theranos "largely b/c they saw the Walgreens partnership as an endorsement of this young company, but you’ll learn that [Walgreens'] two-phase approach required Theranos to do too much too fast, far beyond it’s expertise. A mistake. Not a fraud."
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade says the evidence will show that the investors in this case were "incredibly sophisticated and new the risks." The investors were millionaires and many -- like Rupert Murdoch, the heirs to the Walmart fortune and the DeVos family -- were billionaires, he says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade notes that many investors pushed others to invest in Theranos, including Brian Grossman, the manager of the hedge fund PFM LP. "They knew the risks. They knew it was a gamble," he says.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade says Holmes used Theranos tests and relied on Balwani and Theranos' "internal experts to ensure that things were being done properly." He says lab directors decide whether tests work and can be used in patient testing, not CEOs like Holmes who had "about a year of college."

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

I'll be updating this story at the end of the day w/ more details, but in case y'all want to read about this morning in US v Holmes, here's my "hey, I wrote this story during a trial break" recap:
haHhENZX

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1435696185801515009/haHhENZX?format=jpg&name=small

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade says the patients and doctors who will testify about bogus Theranos tests represent .00025% of the 8 million test results performed. "How does that compare to typical error rates in a lab? Is that really meaningful evidence of fraud?" he asks.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Btw, one of the reasons they don't have results to Wade's question is b/c Theranos' counsel at WilmerHale lost the key to unlock the database that held all Theranos test results.

WilmerHale Attys Helped Lose Theranos Data, Judge Says - Law360

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade tells jurors to remember that when ex-Theranos lab director Dr. Kingshuk Das criticizes Theranos' blood tests at trial, Holmes was the one who hired him to "try to get him to the bottom of every issue." (Last month, Holmes had tried to get him barred from trial, but lost.)

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Wade wrapped openings. The government calls its first witness: Theranos' controller So Han Spivey, aka. Danise Yam. The judge whispered to his clerk "do you need to tell them how to put a mask on? Is it self explanatory?" Yam says she doesn't want to put the clear mask on.
 
Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

There's some confusion, Yam puts on a clear faceshield, no mask. Robert Leach is up on direct examination. The surround sound audio in the overflow room cut out. Sheesh.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
3h

Took court staff ~10 minutes to get the audio back up, but it's back. (No sweat. All good. Nothing stressful about this at all.) Yam is explaining that at Theranos she prepared financial statements and balance sheets until 2017 when she and the accounting team was laid off.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
2h

Yam says Theranos didn't have outside firms like KPMG audit its financial statements, which she said is unusual b/c annual third-party audits usually make small businesses more credible. She also says Theranos couldn't pay all of its vendors in early 2009.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
2h

Yam says in 2010 Theranos raised $45 million from investors and now she wants to take the faceshield off because she says she can hardly see.

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
2h

Yam is reviewing an Excel spreadsheet she sent in April 2012 w/ many tabs and stats on Theranos' income in 2009, 2010 and 2011. She's not wearing a mask or faceshield, but the witness box has plexiglass, so that's good?

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
2h

The prosecutor wrapped trial for the day by pointing out Theranos' losses were $11.46 million in 2009, $16.2 million in 2010 and $27.5 million in 2011. The judge is admonishing the jury, asking them to disable notifications on their phone to avoid unwanted 'exposure to info.'

Dorothy Atkins

@doratki
·
2h

Judge Davila keeps juror no 7. The juror says she shifted her Fri schedule and hopes to talk to her boss about moving it for the rest of trial. "It looks like she's making great efforts to see if she can rearrange things, we'll see what happens on Friday," the judge says.
 
brm1960 said:
Halloween costume ideas for 2021. I really want to do it.
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah! You got a black suit? Black turtleneck? Covered by a lab coat. (Good news: if you have a lab coat, you wouldn't have to run down a black suit jacket.) That gosh awful garish red lipstick slathered on with the "cupid bow" upper lip line? Blanched foundation. Definitely, a wig. Oh, and the voice. The dog she called a "wolf"? Armored limo? The "I never took chemistry" gobbledygook? This could get super fun....
I never figured out EH's "around the office" shoes....
What would you do for a "nanotainer"?

All this is complicated by the fact that, for the trial, EH is highly made-up while seeming to have no makeup on at all.
 
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