GUILTY CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud (2003 -2018) #1

[Gardenista]

Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, 35, arrives at a San Jose court for motions hearing | Daily Mail Online

 

[JerseyGirl]

Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes in California court ahead of trial date

Holmes’ trial date is scheduled for August and is expected to last about three months. The judge set out to pick a date that didn’t interfere with any major holidays.

 

[RickshawFan]

She and her voice are scary!

She didn't just lower her voice. She trained her eyes not to blink.

 

[RickshawFan]

Podcast is The Dropout and the HBO documentary is called The Inventor. It’s bazzar, but fascinating.

The book "Bad Blood" is riveting IMO. Carreyrou is the investigative reporter who unraveled the whole fraud, and he's an excellent writer.

 

[RickshawFan]

Holmes's trial postponed because of COVID:

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes has been pushed back due to the pandemic - CNN

 

[Luna20]

She didn't just lower her voice. She trained her eyes not to blink.

That was equally as bizarre as her voice. In her deposition she implored that 100% and it just made her look worse.

The investigator was spot on in the unraveling and writing about it!

 

[Seattle1]

Holmes's trial postponed because of COVID:

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes has been pushed back due to the pandemic - CNN

Initially set to begin on July 28, the trial will now start on October 27, said Judge Edward Davila of the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Davila, who presides over the case, announced the change during a status conference held by telephone Wednesday.

Holmes is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison.

[..]

Holmes' lawyers declared in a joint memorandum, filed on Tuesday, that the pandemic could significantly impact the trial and asked for the case to be postponed until early 2021.

"The possibility of one or more trial participants falling ill to the virus in these circumstances, and under present health conditions, appears to be significant. If any trial participant were to contract the virus, that unfortunate event would significantly disrupt the trial. All trial participants would need to be quarantined for 2 weeks or longer. The risk of a mistrial would be substantial," lawyers for Holmes stated.

[..]

Prosecutors maintained the trial can be held in the fall and also revealed that the government intends to seek a superseding indictment that could expand the case against Holmes. [bbm]

The parties are set to reconvene for a further status update in July, when the judge will decide whether the October trial date is feasible or whether it might be necessary to move the trial to 2021.

 

[Seattle1]

BAD BLOOD: Is disgraced Elizabeth Holmes’ wedding to heir her latest scam?

June 16, 2019

The blond schemer behind bogus blood-testing firm Theranos reportedly married a hotel heir in a Hail Mary to avoid 20 years in prison.

According to the New York Post, Elizabeth Holmes, 35, married boy toy William “Billy” Evans over the weekend in San Francisco and his family is mortified.

His family believes he has been brainwashed. Insiders say Holmes is broke and needs lots of cash for her legal team.

[..]

Former Theranos colleagues suspect the relationship is a ploy with one end game: keep Elizabeth Holmes out of the slammer. And she will go to extreme lengths to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Holmes is gong to get pregnant before she gets on the stand because she will look very sympathetic as a pregnant woman on the stand,” one cynical former employee told Vanity Fair.

 

[Kittybunny]

BAD BLOOD: Is disgraced Elizabeth Holmes’ wedding to heir her latest scam?

June 16, 2019

The blond schemer behind bogus blood-testing firm Theranos reportedly married a hotel heir in a Hail Mary to avoid 20 years in prison.

According to the New York Post, Elizabeth Holmes, 35, married boy toy William “Billy” Evans over the weekend in San Francisco and his family is mortified.

His family believes he has been brainwashed. Insiders say Holmes is broke and needs lots of cash for her legal team.

[..]

Former Theranos colleagues suspect the relationship is a ploy with one end game: keep Elizabeth Holmes out of the slammer. And she will go to extreme lengths to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Holmes is gong to get pregnant before she gets on the stand because she will look very sympathetic as a pregnant woman on the stand,” one cynical former employee told Vanity Fair.

I put nothing past her. I love the NY Post for their gossip section "boy toy" - ha!

Also, from your link above: Prosecutors maintained the trial can be held in the fall and also revealed that the government intends to seek a superseding indictment that could expand the case against Holmes.

That's great news!

 

[RickshawFan]

In her deposition she implored that 100% and it just made her look worse.

Luna...Can you explain this? What was she imploring in her deposition?

Has Holmes's whole deposition been made public? I've only seen a snippet? She was playing the "poor little me, I'm so frail, so depressed, I can't remember anything" gambit. No makeup, fake-messy hairdo....Quite the performance.

This person reminds me of Jodi Arias.

 

[RickshawFan]

Prosecutors maintained the trial can be held in the fall and also revealed that the government intends to seek a superseding indictment that could expand the case against Holmes. [bbm]

I'd love to see the book get thrown at her big time.

Regarding the current charges:

It always did seem to me that her current charges don't correspond to the crime, but maybe someone has perspective? Why wire fraud?

On top of the fraud stuff, there was all that stuff about stalking employees. Is that even legal? Or is it only creepy? How about cheating Medicare/Medicaid? How about the ruse where visitors would get their finger pricked, adjourn for lunch with Holmes, and in the meantime, their test was being run on standard machines. Done with lunch, voilà, test results ready.

Can anyone explain the current charges and what they mean?

What new charges would you expect?

 

[RickshawFan]

Do you think Holmes was a fraud from the get-go (e.g. at Stanford, but also before then) or do you think inch-by-inch she moved down the slippery slope to fraud?

I go with the "personality disorder" theme. The most significant professor in her orbit at Stanford (significantly a woman) pegged her immediately.

I'm curious how she even got to Stanford. (There was something hinky there, already, IMO...she lied to get into the summer program?) Plus, she just used vague gobbledy-gook chemistry phrasing in answers to questions. This was soooo obvious!

I'll have to look this stuff up in the book again. It seemed as though she was so easy to size up and there were inklings of psychopathology already by the time she showed up at Stanford, and she quit freshman year.

If you look at the HBO documentary (also in the book), blood got all over the insides of the machines. How was that not gonna happen? It was so obvious the idea wouldn't work. Seriously, who ever would imagine that it would work?

 

[RickshawFan]

This was in the HBO documentary. Did any of you all think it was weird that Holmes had a (heart-tugging, sob sob) story about a favorite uncle who didn't know he had cancer until it was too late, and then it went all over his body, because of....... ta da..... how long the blood tests took?

She wasn't getting grilled on this by audiences?

Such a bogus premise.

I dunno about you, but I've never heard of someone's cancer metastasizing because the blood test took too long...

The selling point of "faster is better so people don't die" shows up elsewhere, e.g.

 

[RickshawFan]

Does anyone understand the chemistry of getting all those blood tests done from one finger droplet? Are there even enough molecules to make that happen?

The sample would have to be split, right, and then have reagents added. You'd need a bunch of molecules to make this happen, correct? For each test that needed a particular reagent?

A. Is one drop enough blood to even run a test?
B. Is the sample so tiny, when you add the reagent, you're actually running the test on the reagent and not the blood? All that reagent increases the odds of contamination?
C. If it were possible to do blood tests with nano amounts of blood, for years they'd have been drawing nano amounts of blood during a veni-puncture?

Anything else relevant on the chemistry and/or technical elements of this case would be super informative.

I can't wrap my head around how so many people (men) were getting duped when there were so many obvious red flags to a basic lay person.

 

[Seattle1]

Luna...Can you explain this? What was she imploring in her deposition?

Has Holmes's whole deposition been made public? I've only seen a snippet? She was playing the "poor little me, I'm so frail, so depressed, I can't remember anything" gambit. No makeup, fake-messy hairdo....Quite the performance.

This person reminds me of Jodi Arias.

I think o/p was referring to Holmes alleged baritone voice. I don't think the entire deposition available. A network might have the transcript but I've not looked for it.

 

[RickshawFan]

These women get it...

 

[RickshawFan]

I think o/p was referring to Holmes alleged baritone voice.

That was my understanding what Luna was referring to, too. The voice scam is I just didn't understand the rest of Luna's comment.

If someone needs a quick place to "get" the voice thing:

 

[RickshawFan]

I can't edit my post upthread, but here is the snippet of deposition I know about:

 

[RickshawFan]

What's the consensus on this woman? Does she come from a place of chutzpah, psychopathy, or innocent but caught on a slippery slope into fraud and lies?

 

[RickshawFan]

Here's to answer part of my blood question.

Even accounting for viscosity and the diameter of the needle, a blood test would need minimally many drops of blood.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-drops-are-present-in-1ml-of-blood

Holmes was claiming "a drop" and "a few drops" per the indictment.

I assume tests wouldn't work with lower quantity than the minimum current quantity of 0.5 ml on test. If it were possible, it would have been done already? Makes no sense to me why this would be a viable proposition for Theranos even to attempt this.

I'm also thinking blood coagulates quickly if you prick your finger and collect it from the surface, and this would undoubtedly throw off a test? And there would be a contamination problem from whatever was on the surface of your finger?