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When Elizabeth Holmes goes on trial this fall, patients who received false test results from her company Theranos will be allowed to testify. the medical diagnoses were in fact a fraud.
In an order filed Wednesday, US District Judge Edward J. Davila dismissed a petition from Holmes to suppress evidence of customer complaints and the results of their tests in his criminal wire fraud trial. Decision allows prosecutors to put patients on the witness stand as they attempt to prove the 37-year-old former Silicon Valley CEO knew his company’s technology was likely to produce inaccurate results , but promoted her anyway.
Holmes’ lawyers have argued that allowing prosecutors to use patient testimony, which they say is anecdotal because the evidence would violate his due process rights. They said a company database of millions of test results and quality control data could have shown the technology was producing accurate results, but it was lost when Theranos was disbanded at the sequel to Holmes’ indictment in 2018. A copy was provided to prosecutors, but investigators were never able to use it because they did not have the necessary encryption key to access its contents. Theranos dismantled the original database shortly after sending the copy to prosecutors.
Lawyers for Holmes blamed prosecutors for the “failure” to preserve access to the database which they said could have shown accurate test results, but the judge disagreed.
“It might as well contain incriminating evidence to the contrary,” Davila wrote. “Any exculpatory value is therefore speculative in nature.”
Representatives for Holmes ‘defense team did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment. The US attorney’s office declined to comment.
Former Holmes and Theranos President and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani each faces two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud under indictment filed last year by wire – against investors and patients – and 10 counts of fraud by wire.
Holmes and Balwani, who faces a separate trial next year, have pleaded not guilty.
Holmes’ trial has been repeatedly delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and again this year after telling court she was pregnant and due to give birth in July. Jury selection is currently scheduled for August 31, with trial likely starting the following week.
Holmes had sought to revolutionize medicine with Theranos’ proprietary machine, which she said could perform hundreds of blood tests on a few drops of blood. The machine was said to be faster, cheaper, and more accurate than any other blood testing lab equipment on the market. Holmes’ claims drew top investors and glowing articles in magazines like Fortune and Forbes, but his story – and ultimately, his business – fell apart following a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigation. .
In March 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Theranos, Holmes and Balwani with “massive fraud”, alleging they raised over $ 700 million from 2013 to 2015 through an “elaborate and multi-year-long series” lies and exaggerations about the company’s business, finance and technology. Holmes agreed to pay the SEC a $ 500,000 fine to settle the civil charges. Several months later, the Justice Department charged her and Balwani with wire fraud.
Prosecutors allege executives knew their blood tests produced unreliable results but still sold them, and then committed wire fraud by electronically transmitting those results to patients and doctors across state lines.
Several patients who were on the prosecution’s list of potential witnesses for Holmes’ trial recently recounted their experiences to the Journal. A woman told the newspaper she received a test result that incorrectly indicated that she was having a miscarriage. Another said he got a result that incorrectly suggested he might have prostate cancer.
The jury will not hear of any physical or emotional harm they may have suffered as a result of the erroneous tests due to an earlier ruling by the judge limiting the patients’ testimony to the facts. But the inclusion of patient testimony alone will likely be key to the prosecution’s case.
In court documents filed last year, prosecutors argued that their testimony “will greatly assist the jury in reaching their conclusions about the falsity of the defendant’s statements, her knowledge of their falsity and her intention to defraud patients in general. “.
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