Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves federal court in San Jose, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Nic Coury) (AP Photo/Nic Coury / AP Newsroom) |
The California jury on the criminal fraud case against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes says she is stuck on 3 of the 11 charges she faces. The panel, made up of eight men and four women, sent a notice to the judge on Monday stating that they could not reach a unanimous verdict on the seventh day of deliberations on Holmes’ fate. The jury was still able to decide on the remaining eight points. This story is in progress and will be updated.
Holmes, 37, has been charged by federal prosecutors on nine wire transfer fraud cases and two wire transfer conspiracy cases for misleading investors and patients with her company’s failed blood testing technology. Any charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Holmes has pleaded not guilty on all charges and stood in defense during the trial, admitting he was sorry but denied cheating on anyone.
She also accused her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos Chief Operating Officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, of allegedly misleading her about the effectiveness of Theranos technology, and charged him with emotional and sexual abuse.
Balwani faces his own trial next year over his alleged Holmes, who founded Theranos at the age of 19 after dropping out of Stanford University and baffling Silicon Valley and investors with the promise that Theranos technology would work with just a few Drops of blood from a patient could diagnose a variety of diseases instead of the traditional blood vessels drawn from the patient.
The young entrepreneur became a billionaire on paper after he rose more than $ 900 million in investors, but it began to solve 2015 after the Wall Street Journal exposed that Theranos using traditional machines for its testing rather than its own technology.
Flaws in the health care startup’s technology were also found, indicating that Theranos’ own diagnostics were not accurate.
Holmes was indicted in 2018, the same year Theranos shut down.