Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes seeks to overturn fraud conviction

Attorneys for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and company President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani on Tuesday informed a federal appeals court docket to overturn their convictions for defrauding traders in the failed blood testing startup, which turned into once once valued at $9 billion.

Amy Saharia, Holmes’ authorized real, told a 3-decide panel of the ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that Holmes believed she turned into once telling the truth when she told traders that Theranos’s exiguous blood testing machine might maybe per chance precisely high-tail a colossal array of medical diagnostic assessments on a exiguous amount of blood.

Holmes, who began Theranos as a college student and own was its public face, turned into once indicted alongside Balwani, her worn romantic associate, in 2018. The two own been tried individually in 2022, and sentenced later that 300 and sixty five days to 11 years and three months, and 12 years and 11 months, respectively.

Saharia stated the trial decide improperly allowed worn Theranos employee Kingshuk Das to testify as a scientific knowledgeable about Theranos’s product without making him face contaminated-examination about his talents.

She additionally stated the decide must always own allowed Holmes to introduce more evidence attacking one other key prosecution peek, Theranos’s worn laboratory director Adam Rosendorff, together with predominant aspects of a authorities investigation of his work after leaving Theranos that she stated called his competence into inquire.

These errors will own made the incompatibility in the “close” case, by which jurors weren’t ready to achieve a verdict on most counts in opposition to Holmes after seven days of deliberations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Volkar, arguing for the authorities, disputed that Das had improperly testified as an knowledgeable, asserting he turned into once called to discuss his deepest skills at Theranos. She additionally stated that “it turned into once not in actuality contested that the machine did not work.”

The judges had skeptical questions for either aspect, and did not clearly indicate how they would per chance rule. Circuit Resolve Ryan Nelson stated that, even without the disputed testimony, “there turned into once, it perceived to me, moderately overwhelming evidence.”

Circuit Judges Jacqueline Nguyen and Mary Schroeder stated that grand of Das’ testimony concerned what he noticed on the company, not his scientific opinions, as Saharia argued.

Nguyen and Nelson, then again, additionally each and every told Volkar that they’d concerns about what opinions Das turned into once allowed to offer for the length of the trial.

Jeffrey Coopersmith, Balwani’s authorized real, argued that prosecutors had long gone previous what turned into once in the indictment in opposition to his client by introducing evidence that the commercial testing skills Theranos secretly historical turned into once not official.

The judges seemed more skeptical of that argument, though again did not clearly signal how they would per chance rule.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in Fresh York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)