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Biotech The Courts

Judge Declines To Overturn Elizabeth Holmes Guilty Verdict (politico.com) 56

Posted by BeauHD from the denied-requests dept.
A federal judge on Thursday tentatively declined to overturn the jury conviction of disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. That leaves the former Silicon Valley star a step closer to serving prison time. Politico reports: U.S. District Judge Edward Davila won't make that decision final until Oct. 17, when he is scheduled to sentence Holmes in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where a jury found her guilty of duping investors in her much-hyped blood-testing startup. Holmes, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus restitution, for lying to investors about a Theranos technology she hailed as a revolution in healthcare but which in practice produced dangerously inaccurate results.
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Judge Declines To Overturn Elizabeth Holmes Guilty Verdict More

Judge Declines To Overturn Elizabeth Holmes Guilty Verdict

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  • Completely unsure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @05:47PM (#62847819)
    How to feel about Holmes and prison time. On one had, what she pulled was straight-up un-apologetic fraud, and she’s absolutely, 100% nuh-uh-dint-do-it unrepentent.

    On the other hand, 20 years sounds harsh. So many wall street bros pull this sort of crap, do massive amounts of financial damage to regular people, and barely get a slap on the wrist. Wells Fargo literally created fake customer accounts so they could charge fraudulent fees. Millions of times. If I recall correctly, they got caught at it twice. I dont think a single Fargo employee went to prison - the company negotiated a settlement and the government agreed to no prison time.

    • Re:Completely unsure (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @05:52PM (#62847833)
      she deserves jail time, just because other pieces of shit got away with it doesn't mean you let off the next piece of shit.

      • just because other pieces of shit got away with it doesn't mean you let off the next piece of shit.

        You also have to consider the global fairness of the justice system, where similar offences are supposed to yield similar punishment. If this particular fraud is not normally punished (e.g. the argument that Wall Street people do it all the time and the public attorneys don't think it's worth to prosecute) then it means this behaviour is socially should not be subject of prosecution at all, or considered a lower offence and the potential punishment should reflect this fact.

        • ... socially accepted* ...

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bloodhawk ( 813939 )
          The justice system or specifically the courts, Juries and Judges need to treat everyone equally. However, they do not get to decide who is brought before the system to be prosecuted and they do not and SHOULD NOT be taking into account those that struct deals to avoid prosecution.
      • You dont got to pick the single woman out of a lineup of 18,000 equally guilty wall street bros, string her up, and then claim righteousness. Well, you can, but nobody except the rest of the MGTOW 4chan group will agree with you. Anyone who thinks that’s fair needs to take a long honest look in the mirror.

        Again, I’m not defending Holmes in the slightest. An unrepentent wannabe-Steve-Jobs fraud. Its just that equality under the law is pretty important in a modern civilized society, and 20 yea

        • You dont got to pick the single woman out of a lineup of 18,000 equally guilty wall street bros, string her up, and then claim righteousness.

          Straw man - This is not about her being a woman. It is about her being guilty.

          You are trying to excuse her behavior by claiming that being a woman makes her a victim. That is massively sexist.

        • No need to simp for her - her partner [wikipedia.org] was found guilty and could get the same amount of time in prison as her. Her prosecution has nothing to do with her being a woman. It's because the two of them defrauded the wrong type of people: rich people.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        Non-violent offenders do not belong in prison. There are always better options.

        Elizabeth Holmes can wear an ankle tracker and spend the next 20 years cleaning bedpans in nursing homes or some other job where she can contribute to society instead of being a burden.

        Prisons are for dangerous, violent criminals who need to be separated from civilized society. If you saw Elizabeth walking toward you on the street, would you be afraid? Of course not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

          Elizabeth Holmes can wear an ankle tracker and spend the next 20 years cleaning

          toilets in prisons.
          There, much better, don't you think?

      • I fail to see what she did that's not done by every single corporate or startup that's not successful and went bankrupt.

        Except that she was this weird, rude and unlikable personality, probably on purpose due to mimicking jobs, that few humans will like.

        Lot of us could do (& have done) all that and not have a single investor going to the court or anyone complaining - just a bunch of people sympathizing that it didn't work out.

        There's a reason we are social animals and do not rub people the wrong way unle

    • I agree that 20 years is excessive but I suspect she's going to be doing much less time. It seems to me that any regular person would already be in jail at this point awaiting sentencing.

    • Re:Completely unsure (Score:4, Interesting)

      by splutty ( 43475 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @06:09PM (#62847857)

      One of the reasons why "they" really threw the book at her is basically the last sentence of the summary.

      "produced dangerously inaccurate results. "

      I really wish they would apply the same sort of thought to white collar crime as well, and very slowly some countries are starting to do that, but this was a bit too obvious and a bit too dangerous to let go.

      • I'm happy to see this, actually, because I worked in the diagnostic field around the same time Theranos was making waves, and I knew it for the bullshit it was. I didn't have to see their equipment up close and personal because if it could've been done, the company I was with had the money and the resources to make it happen. And we didn't; and it wasn't for lack of trying. We were big enough that we could've bought Theranos outright plenty of times over if there were any truth to their technology, as co

      • PGE execs' actions have verifiably resulted in a dozen deaths per year on average over the last decade.

    • She messed with the ruling class (Score:4, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @06:17PM (#62847881)
      you can defraud as many little old ladies as you want, but just like Madoff as soon as the ones in charge get hoodwinked by your scam you're in trouble.

      The less is don't rip off important people.

    • So many wall street bros pull this sort of crap, do massive amounts of financial damage to regular people, and barely get a slap on the wrist.

      20 years is 5 years + parole with good behavior.

      All that was brought up in court as part of her defense, and the judge nonetheless made their decision. Do you think the judge, that heard all the evidence, hates woman and is therefore locking her away because of it? That doesn't feel like a logical conclusion.

      I get a strong "I'm going to try the exact same shit again" vibe from her.

      • I get a strong "I'm going to try the exact same shit again" vibe from her.

        This is the part I think is critical. She hasn't admitted guilt or responsibility, she has pointed the finger at everyone but herself and that she did nothing wrong and is just a victim. That says she hasn't changed and is unlikely to change out of this (except maybe to make her next scam more difficult to catch).

      • Maybe but I suspect nobody except her husband’s family is gonna touch her with a million-foot pole ever again. Medical fraud REALLY pisses people off.

      • Re:Completely unsure (Score:4, Interesting)

        by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Saturday September 03, 2022 @03:26AM (#62848657)
        There's no parole in the federal system. You have to serve a minimum of 85% of your sentence. I doubt there will be another once in a century catastrophic pandemic for another round of earlier releases.

        • It may not be called parole but that doesn't mean people don't get out early, including less than 85%. E.g. Martin Shkreli is out having served only 4 of his 7 year sentence in federal prison for fraud.

    • Same with Martha Stewart. I feel much safer knowing she was locked up.

    • I think that the nearest equivalent crime that hit the news was Enron and people did get time for that. As I type this, I remember that her father actually worked for Enron and I don't think he was even prosecuted, despite being a VP, so almost certainly (despite his claims otherwise) he knew Enron wasn't a legitimate enterprise.

      So, perhaps she did learn from Enron.

    • The rich thieves who run most of the US need punishment and any is better than none.

      No one would care about Holmes were she not a white female. This would barely be news.

      She mulcted a particularly credulous variety of accomplished men whose mind shuts off when they see pussy. We've all met them and they deserve it for being weak.

    • I think the big difference here is that she wasn't just manipulating money. She was manipulating life concerning medical care. That puts her offense on a more serious note than a finance-bro ponzi scheme. Both are bad, but one of them has lives on the line, not just dollars.

    • No sympathy here. This woman, at best, stole millions of dollars from people by defrauding them. At worst, she may have caused deaths in people who did not get proper treatment because of the faulty tests. She deserves every year she gets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      Her lies directly affected the health, life and death of people, because she was supposedly running healthcare tests and giving fraudulent results. Not simply wrong - fraudulent.

      So, more time is appropriate in this case due to her callous disregard of life.

    • On the other hand, 20 years sounds harsh.

      It sounds light to me.

      Maybe you're European or something?

      Also, there is a big difference between mere financial fraud and medical fraud.

    • Bros? In that example you offered, you might recall Carrie Tolstedt was one of two executives implicated in the Wells Fargo scandal. Drop this sexism nonsense. Tolstedt didn't serve any time. Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Bernie Madoff were sentenced to prison in cases far more comparable to Theranos than what happened at Wells Fargo.

      Holmes will serve time because it's provable she intended fraud, and there is evidence of attempts to pervert justice. Certainly I agree we should have seen prison time at

    • Don't forget that she was screwing around with blood / medical tests.

      And there were instances revealed in court where victims almost did the wrong thing to themselves due to the wrong results. Lucky that the one I recall reading about had a 2nd opinion / 2nd test.

      This was not just money.

    • So many wall street bros pull this sort of crap, do massive amounts of financial damage to regular people, and barely get a slap on the wrist.

      You're experiencing observer bias. There are plenty of wall street bros serving hard jail time for fraud. Mind you most of their fraud doesn't have a direct influence on medical decisions likely to cause people to die either.

      I dont think a single Fargo employee went to prison - the company negotiated a settlement and the government agreed to no prison time.

      It's generally hard to pin fraud based on corporate policy down on a single person, hence the settlements. It's quite a bit different when a single person personally commits the fraud directly. This is why Elizabeth Homes is going to Jail. It's why Martin Shkreli (pharmabro) went to jai

  • She is 100% con artist and fraud. I think she may even believe her own lies. However, she should not be treated better than say Madoff, because she's a pretty woman. She committed billions of dollars of fraud and knowingly gave patients incorrect positive test results because her tests were not reliable and she knew it.

    I hope she does atleast 10.

    • There are large differences with Madoff, for better and for worse:

      Madoff ran a fraud that only could result in people losing big (by the nature of pyramid schemes). His victims were regular people (well-off but still normal people) who had apparently little understanding of investments, who suddenly found themselves without any savings.

      Holmes did use the entire money into the research and the business she was supposed to be doing (from what I understand). Just it did not work well, and as she did not report

  • Sonny made some bad life decisions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @06:16PM (#62847877)

    You look at Sonny Balwani, her partner. The guy really fucked up his life. He had a perfect life and then Mrs. Holmes comes along...

    Imagine being in his shoes: It's the early 2000s. You're in China learning Mandarain, you're in your late 30s, you made $40 million selling your shares of your company in July 2000 shortly before it failed in the dot.com bust and you meet this 18 year old who you eventually have a romantic relationship with[3]. They did admit a romantic relationship in court documents, so this isn't making stuff up. Life's big decisions confront you, and what do you end up doing? Let's see how it worked out. All this is on the Wikipedia page for Sunny[1]:

    Fails:

    - Divorce wife.

    - Loan $13 million, no interest to Theranos. [2]

    - Become COO of biotech company even though you have no formal background in biotech.

    - Waste many years of your life in fraudulent company.

    - Be convicted of fraud, disgraced, and possibly spend years in prison.

    - She throws you under the bus and testifies that her bad behavior at Theranos was largely the result of your abuse sexual and otherwise. Jury doesn't believe it, but her accusation is still out there.

    Neutral:

    - Have no kids, never remarry. Holmes gets married and has a kid as she was awaiting her criminal trial.

    Wins:

    + Have romantic relationship with beautiful lady in her 20s.

    Anyway, there's some big life decisions here that, IMHO, Sunny made very poorly.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    [2]https://stylecaster.com/sunny-balwani-net-worth/

    [3]"Holmes and Balwani met for the first time in 2002. The pair initially met in Beijing, China, while on a language immersion program with Stanford University. Holmes was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time, whereas Balwani was a married, 37-year-old university student completing his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley. All in all, the pair had a 19 year age difference" https://stylecaster.com/elizab... [stylecaster.com]

  • It's worse than fraud... she was falsifying medical data... with real patients

  • Holmes' Stanford professor came out unscathed.. (Score:3)

    by tekram ( 8023518 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @06:39PM (#62847925)
    Stanford professor Channing Robertson, one of Holmes' earliest cheerleaders who was paid more than any other Theranos employee early on should had known Holmes was a fraud. Robertson basically enabled Holmes because here she was a drop out with a lot of ambition and ability to raise money but very little knowledge of biotechnology. BTW, maybe she learned a lot about business from her father because he used to work for Enron and Holmes grew up in Houston and must have known about the toxic Enron corporate culture.

  • Screw that (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aerogems ( 339274 ) on Friday September 02, 2022 @06:47PM (#62847943)

    She literally endangered people's lives and we may never know how many people actually died as a result. As far as I'm concerned, getting anything less than a life sentence is her getting off easy.

  • Ya'll have a really low bar for "beauty" if you think Elizabeth Holmes is pretty. She's an average looking blonde. But then again, Sonny isn't exactly Harshad Chopda or Ravi Dubey. Hell, even Kumail Nanjiani and Kal Penn are better looking.

  • It's a sad day, when evil people are held accountable. : P
  • Imagine the ultimate lying, deceitful, and evil being that could be made. Bwha, bwha, bwha....
  • She doesn't seem stable enough to deal with 20 years in prison, I'll give her even odds she kills herself if she can't avoid prison.

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