Theranos Founder Elizabeth Homes is Found Guilty by a Jury

Elizabeth Homes, the former CEO and founder of blood testing startup company Theranos, was found guilty this week of defrauding investors.

Homes was guilty on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She now faces up to 20 years in prison.

After a long trial, and over three years since Homes had been charged and forced to step down from CEO in 2018, the verdict was long awaited.

Of the 11 total charges, Holmes was found guilty on four which were: conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud against individual investors. She was found not guilty on
four additional charges, including one count of conspiracy to defraud patients, two counts of fraud against individual patients, and one count of wire fraud stemming from ads Theranos ran in Arizona.

The jury ended up deadlocked on three other counts of wire fraud and returned no verdict on those charges.

Holmes’ lawyers tried to portray her as a young and inexperienced entrepreneur during the trial and said, “Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing more affordable,” one of Holmes’ attorneys said in opening arguments. “She failed … but failure is not a crime.”

Holmes testified that she hadn’t intended to mislead the public or investors, and had been advised to protect the company’s “trade secrets.”

According to a NY Times report, she “spent much of her testimony arguing that others at Theranos were responsible for the company’s shortcomings.”

The mistrial leaves open the possibility of a new trial, though the prosecutors haven’t said whether they would pursue such an action.

No time has been given for when she will be sentenced.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.