Former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani Sentenced To Nearly 13 Years In Prison (cnbc.com) 73
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Former Theranos chief operating officer and president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison Wednesday for fraud, after the unraveling of the blood-testing juggernaut prompted criminal charges in California federal court against both Balwani and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who on Nov. 18 was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
During the sentencing hearing, attorneys for Balwani attempted to pin the blame on Holmes, telling U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila that "decisions were made by Elizabeth Holmes." Davila had set a sentencing range of 11 years plus 3 months to 14 years, but prosecutors today sought a 15-year sentence given his "significant" oversight role at Theranos' lab business. The final guideline sentence was 155 months, plus three years of probation. Davila set a Mar. 15, 2023, surrender date. [...] Balwani's sentencing in federal court marks the end of the Theranos saga, which enthralled the public and prompted documentary films and novel treatments.
During the sentencing hearing, attorneys for Balwani attempted to pin the blame on Holmes, telling U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila that "decisions were made by Elizabeth Holmes." Davila had set a sentencing range of 11 years plus 3 months to 14 years, but prosecutors today sought a 15-year sentence given his "significant" oversight role at Theranos' lab business. The final guideline sentence was 155 months, plus three years of probation. Davila set a Mar. 15, 2023, surrender date. [...] Balwani's sentencing in federal court marks the end of the Theranos saga, which enthralled the public and prompted documentary films and novel treatments.
Confused (Score:2)
Is this one any more responsible than the CEO? Or why did she get like half of this sentence?
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Re:Confused (Score:4, Funny)
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Bug will be fixed in next release.
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Elizabeth Holmes: 135 months
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani: 155 months
She got a 12.9% less.
He has got a 14.81% more.
I have no idea of the details. But it's not "like half".
This may be relevant, not sure, but it's funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
He had no training in biological sciences or medical devices,[18] which became an issue due to the absence of medical experts on the company's board of directors and Balwani's behavior.
Within Theranos, Balwani was known for using technical terms he seemingly did not understand in what others believed were attempts to appear more knowledgeable.[16] Balwani at one point claimed "This invention [the Edison blood testing device] is going to be way up there, um, with – with the discovery of antibiotics."[18] He once misheard "end effector" (the claw or other device at the end of an automated robot's arm) as "endofactor" (a nonsense word) and repeated the error throughout a meeting, furthermore not noticing when "Endofactor" was subsequently used as a prank in a PowerPoint presentation.[16]
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I'm just amazed they stuck around to be prosecuted. If you are running a huge scam shouldn't you have an exit plan that involves moving to a country with no US extradition treaty?
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It is unlikely that they planned to scam anyone. In the beginning, they thought their technology would work. But they got behind schedule, so they fudged a little. Expectations rose as they fell further behind, so they doubled down on the fakery to buy some time. Then they realized their tech would never work as they hoped. But they were darlings of the VC scene, with their photos on the cover of Forbes. So what do they do? Come clean and watch their dream fall apart, or continue the con for as long as they
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It is unlikely that they planned to scam anyone. In the beginning, they thought their technology would work. But they got behind schedule, so they fudged a little. Expectations rose as they fell further behind, so they doubled down on the fakery to buy some time. Then they realized their tech would never work as they hoped. But they were darlings of the VC scene, with their photos on the cover of Forbes. So what do they do? Come clean and watch their dream fall apart, or continue the con for as long as they could while living the life of glamorous twenty-something billionaires?
I believe you are right. But they were willing to do the crime, and there is something called criminal stupidity.
About the most generous excuse is that they were drawn into their con very slowly - just a little deeper each day.
The part that I don't get is - the first time I saw and listened to her, I knew immediately she was on a con job. The seeming impossibility of the goal, the weird purposeful low voice that made her sound stupid than anything else.
It was a different sort of con though, which wa
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Some VCs likely figured out it was fake, but they were already invested. So rather than sink the ship, they let it float until they could offload their stake onto a greater fool. Unfortunately for them, it sank too quickly.
All of the people who lost money were sophisticated investors who should have done their due diligence.
Re:Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a little different than your garden variety silicon valley con, because in this case people could die from their lies, not just lose money.
The root con was the self-con of hubris, thinking "I had a great idea while stoned, and it will surely work because I am so brilliant."
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But the basis behind their tech was flimsy. Maybe Balwani believed it as he didn't have any medical education (or technological apparently). The technology does not yet exist to do all the types of blood tests claimed on microscopic amounts of blood. There are patents for such from Theranos but the current US Patent Office no longer requires working models or even a basis in reality. their machine was based on what was essentially science fiction, and then hyped about how they would use the internet to ass
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If you are running a huge scam shouldn't you have an exit plan that involves moving to a country with no US extradition treaty?
Their ego+money probably made them think they were untouchable.
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Note also Bernie Madoff. I think he really thought he would beat the system, and he slowly spiraled into illegality to keep this venture afloat. Once you've broken that first law it becomes easier to break it and others again.
Holmes did have a plan. A plan to get rich. She seems to have followed that typical trajectory. The "I have a billion dollar idea, I just need a lot of people to do literally all the work on it" is very common in silicon valley. She she had an idea, but had no clue whatsoever abo
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Only if you're smart. You can be dumb and run a scam. Sometimes the dumb scammers even end up believing in their own scams. Or more likely, the dumb CEOs of companies fail to notice how bad things really are and instead believe that the future is rosy and everything will be fine as long as you push the team harder and lie on the financials until you get past whatever temporary hurdles are in the way. The smart CEOs cut and run when they see the writing on the wall.
Glass ceiling (Score:1, Funny)
Women always get less than men for the same work.
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She'll get out early too on an Epstein-like "work release".
It's called being protected. Kissinger was her main Board member.
Back when they were hunting for UBL the spooks dreamed of a worldwide DNA database.
Being the monopoly blood testing service was an ideal mechanism and the current system *is* inefficient and wasteful.
They thought they could front-run a psyop, get the media to run with "Girl Steve Jobs" and do the dirty with OPM. I smelled a turd as soon as the black turtleneck came out (if only I cou
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This is no parole in the federal system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
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"Kissinger was her main Board member."
The insane part is that people who should know better think that it's OK to let people with NO EXPERIENCE make decisions in situations in a field where experience is critical.
It happens across the board. It's fine to let a Harvard dropout run a stalking site, but to let it happen for health, trucking, industrial facilities... it's madness!
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this one any more responsible than the CEO? Or why did she get like half of this sentence?
In general, women get lesser sentences than men for the same crime. https://www.ussc.gov/research/... [ussc.gov]
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
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She got pregnant *while* on trial. Is that irresponsible or what? My guess was, she knew she was going to jail, she had a rich and dumb husband who'd still very likely divorce her when she was in jail, so have some rich kids with him now so that later when she gets out of prison they might be able to support her.
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Cited:
"Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases"
Lar and Economics Review 17, no. 1 (2014): 127-59
With that in mind, he got off lightly.
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Is this one any more responsible than the CEO?
The CEO is not responsible. The CEO is accountable. There's a very big difference and it's the reason a COO position exists in the first place. Accountability is wide reaching but a step removed from those responsible for specific parts of a company. Historically the COO / CFO are far more directly linked to crimes of a business and typically end up with larger sentences. The exception is those who co-operate, quite often the CFO throws the CEO under the bus.
Or why did she get like half of this sentence?
She didn't. She got 85% of the sentence.
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While it is not exactly double (CEO got 11) for now, it is likely going to be even more than double. I bet that she will be out on some compassionate ground or something else in less than half the time served (My bet is like less than a third). Simple logic here. White woman vs brown man. Mostly CEO will be out in 2-3 years and COO will server minimum of 6 years.
novel treatments (Score:1)
Only? (Score:2)
Re:Only? (Score:4, Interesting)
At least she can, with justification, claim that she was young, naive, and idealistic. He was a grown man already, and, by most references, a narcissistic bastard.
It is always the man's fault. Taking advantage of an innocent , who just wanted to save the world. Her innocence and purity shone through - it is a travesty of justice that she was even charged with crimes - the patriarchy claims another victim, and all the worse, a woman pure of heart, with the age old story of being taken advantage of by a man.
Deterrent? Probably not. (Score:3)
Other corrupt executives have huge egos. They think they are untouchable, that their situation is different, that they are untouchable. They'll probably keep doing what they are doing.
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That's my issue with the sentences for both Holmes and this guy. Both people are objectionable and deserve punishment. But..
The sentences seem pretty harsh for what the results actually were.
-No one got injured. For all the what-if's, not one single person's health was affected
-Grandma's didn't lose their pensions
-A bunch of "sophisticated" investors (legal term) lost money. Which they should be prepared to do in an inherently riskly investment
-Some powerful people on the board and otherwise were embarr
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I'd go the other way. *More* over-promising, under-delivering CEOs should get more jail time, not less.
In this case, grandmas didn't lose their pensions, but some of them potentially lost their *lives* or at least lost their ability to get appropriate treatment for their medical conditions through fraudulent blood work that resulted in false positives and false negatives. It's one thing to over-promise and under-deliver. But when your promises cause people to become or remain sick, or even die, that's serio
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The point is that Thanos technology never worked and was never used. Or at least this was what the prosecution alleged in the trials. If that is the case and I am going to go with the prosecution here then nobody's life was put at risk. Consequently, the only harm is the investors lost their money and 11 years is over the top IMHO. Rapists get less time.
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I should have pointed out that Anne Sacoolas just got a two year suspended sentence for killing someone and then fleeing illegally claiming she had diplomatic immunity.
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Anne Sacoolas made a mistake. Sending her to prison:
- Is not going to teach her to stop making mistakes
- Is not going to work as a deterrent, other people are going to keep making mistakes
Why would we send her to prison?
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Oh, the technology was indeed widely used. According to this article, 1.5 million blood tests were used on real patients. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
We need equality in sentencing (Score:5, Insightful)
We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
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We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
Feminists are agitating for no sentences at all for women. https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Which is to borrow from the old trope "Women get much shorter prison sentences than men. Women most affected."
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No, I'm not paraphrasing the feminists.
"Equality" means "Subsidy" (Score:1)
In egalitarian systems, you set up a poverty line type indicator. Everyone below that gets given stuff; everyone above that has stuff taken away.
This is in contrast to Plato's formulation, "good to the good, and bad to the bad," which always increases the amount of good over time.
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I hope you don't have any dependents.
Dependents (Score:1)
Nothing wrong with taking care of your family or charity in the community.
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Sounds like your interpretation of Plato would disagree with you.
On the other hand, some people consider "their community" to be larger than others. Even as large as their whole city, country, species, or world. IIRC there's a psychological concept of developing the ability to feel loyalty to larger and more abstract groups. There's also Piaget and Kohlberg.
Plato (Score:1)
Plato said many things in The Republic, some of which were thought experiments.
I extend charity to all of humanity... but only if it helps. Supporting too many humans is a mistake because then we perish from overpopulation and ecocide.
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Way to quote out of context. The article is saying a disproportionately high number of women are sentenced to prison for crimes so trivial most people would be fined or not charged in the first place. Also it's talking about the UK.
That's the exact opposite of the theme you're spamming this thread with, the idea women are treated lightly by the judiciary.
Way to disregard my point. I specifically noted that feminists want women to not be sentenced at all, just like it says.
Just so people see what the article is, and to show how I triggered you:
The headline is "Women hit hardest by 'shameful' short prison sentences, new figures reveal"
There appears to be no concern for men and any sentences they might serve, and a very definite expression of no prison terms for women at all - because they are "hit hardest."
It does not that there is an effort to red
Re:We need equality in sentencing (Score:4, Informative)
We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
Holmes started Theranos at 19, I don't know at what point the fraud started going but it would have been in her early 20s.
Balwani on the other hand was is his late 30s with a somewhat sketchy business history when he met Holmes and started an affair with her (I don't know the exact timeline but he she was possibly still a 18 year old High School student when they started dating). And he was late thirties to early forties when the real fraud started happening.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the person who was significantly older with may more life experience getting a longer sentence.
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We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
Holmes started Theranos at 19, I don't know at what point the fraud started going but it would have been in her early 20s.
Balwani on the other hand was is his late 30s with a somewhat sketchy business history when he met Holmes and started an affair with her (I don't know the exact timeline but he she was possibly still a 18 year old High School student when they started dating). And he was late thirties to early forties when the real fraud started happening.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the person who was significantly older with may more life experience getting a longer sentence.
Uh huh. Here's another one:
Lori Loughlin and her husband Giannulli plead guilty to paying $500k to guarantee their daughters got into USC.
He was sentenced to 5 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, 250 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving his prison sentence.
She was sentenced to 2 months in prison, a $150,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving her prison sentence.
I guess he plead 150% more guilty than she did
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We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
Holmes started Theranos at 19, I don't know at what point the fraud started going but it would have been in her early 20s.
Balwani on the other hand was is his late 30s with a somewhat sketchy business history when he met Holmes and started an affair with her (I don't know the exact timeline but he she was possibly still a 18 year old High School student when they started dating). And he was late thirties to early forties when the real fraud started happening.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the person who was significantly older with may more life experience getting a longer sentence.
Uh huh. Here's another one:
Lori Loughlin and her husband Giannulli plead guilty to paying $500k to guarantee their daughters got into USC.
He was sentenced to 5 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, 250 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving his prison sentence.
She was sentenced to 2 months in prison, a $150,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving her prison sentence.
I guess he plead 150% more guilty than she did
Or he was more guilty [wbur.org]:
Prosecutors said Giannulli deserves a tougher sentence because he was “the more active participant in the scheme,” while Loughlin “took a less active role, but was nonetheless fully complicit.”
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We see this all the time, women get a lighter sentence than men do. When will feminists demand equal time for the ladies?
Holmes started Theranos at 19, I don't know at what point the fraud started going but it would have been in her early 20s.
Balwani on the other hand was is his late 30s with a somewhat sketchy business history when he met Holmes and started an affair with her (I don't know the exact timeline but he she was possibly still a 18 year old High School student when they started dating). And he was late thirties to early forties when the real fraud started happening.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the person who was significantly older with may more life experience getting a longer sentence.
Uh huh. Here's another one:
Lori Loughlin and her husband Giannulli plead guilty to paying $500k to guarantee their daughters got into USC.
He was sentenced to 5 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, 250 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving his prison sentence.
She was sentenced to 2 months in prison, a $150,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and two years on supervised release after serving her prison sentence.
I guess he plead 150% more guilty than she did
So I don't deny that there's a systemic bias towards women getting lighter sentences. Gender bias tends to frame men as drivers of action while women are given a more secondary role. In professional context this means women tend to find their contributions ignored which make it tougher to get promoted. On the other hand when you're on trial people ignoring your contributions is awesome since it means you get a lighter sentence!
However, in the Holmes case specifically, I think people lose sight of the fact s
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This was equal equality in sentencing. The CEO's role is more abstract and while the responsibility for the COO's actions rests at the feet of Holmes, the COO is far closer and more involved with actual crimes committed by a business when the fraud is operational in nature. We see similar situations for financial crimes where CFOs typically get tougher sentences.
Honestly I'm genuinely impressed she got 11 years. They must have been able to prove a very causal link. Most CEOs would have keep this kind of fra
Federal sentences are based on algorithms (Score:2)
The judge can and sometimes does go up or down from the calculated sentence, but there's a recommended sentence from a system of points and charts.
Brace yourself, hard, and read the book "Inside This Place, Not of It" about women's prisons. It includes how the women got there. What gets women into prison is often not directly comparable to what gets men into prison.
Wrong lawyers (Score:3)
"Prison" (Score:2)
Did they forget quotes around prison? Or are these both really heading to a real prison?
I said this on the last thread (Score:1)
If the answer is "it's a deterrent" than we're inflicting pain and suffering for the sake of motivating behavior. And again I ask: how is that functionally different than torture?
If the goal is to deter, why not increase the amount of suffering? There's plenty o
Re:I said this on the last thread (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not house arrest then? (Score:1)
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And frankly I'm still right. Not a single person on this thread has addressed the central point of my thesis which is that causing pain to solicit a behavior is torture. What aboutism that argues that prison is for reform is just silly. Prison doesn't reform
Re:I said this on the last thread (Score:4, Insightful)
he will be able to emerge after much self-introspection ready to re-enter society as a positive contributor
Mod parent "Funny".
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The role of prison is rehabilitation.
You must not be American. The role of prison in the rest of the world is rehabilitation. The role of prison in the USA is punishment, revenge and generating profits for prison operators.
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That's what it should be. At one prison I read about, it was a disciplinary offense to tutor another inmate. The purpose of a system is what it does.
Sorry, no citation, but there's research that if there's any benefit to a prison sentence then diminishing returns set in at two years. More than that is for deterrence and isolation, not for self-improvement.
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You're right. It makes no sense on any practical level until you realize that the the prison business is a massive money-making scam for lawyers and the private companies that run prisons, so they form an incredibly powerful special interest group.
Now factor in that the US government is a) mostly also made up of lawyers, and b) corrupt as fuck, so you get all these backroom deals with special interest groups.
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but given that this man is no danger to the community (it's easy enough to just bar him from leadership roles above 'night manager of quick-e-mart') why prison?
"Banning them from leadership roles" doesn't stop them. There are loads of loopholes to that (what defines a "leadership role"?) and then there is the question of monitoring them.
Funnily enough, there are plenty of shady companies who would love to employ someone like Balwani, calling him a "consultant" or even an "office boy", because he has demonstrated that he can make billions out of fraud for years before being caught. Balwani has learned a valuable lesson - that next time he would make sure he va
How incredibly naive (Score:2)
There is no reason for a sociopath to seek genuine rehabilitation because sociopathy is USEFUL when the sociopath exercises better judgement.
Further, these vermin forfeit their value to society by preying on it but if their punishment deters even one similar crime that's a financial and social bargain.
The main reason mercy is shown is because the justice system is imprecise. If we could know with true inerrance people were guilty of preying on society the wise move would be to delete them.
As a good citizen
Everyone Else on Board Walking the Street (Score:2)
So, remember: be on the board, make your money, let the top brass take the big hit for it. Walk away and do it again.
Unpossible! (Score:2)
Only Holmes was supposed to get the prison sentence. Everyone told me this was just a hit piece to keep women out of power! What happened? I mean surely the conspiracy morons couldn't be wrong could they?
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Everyone told you? Can you put a name to at least one?
If anything, most people were giving odds he would get far, far more prison time then she did, if she got any at all. The fact that he only got ~15% more time is frankly a little surprising to me. (Literally the first post in this thread is an example.)
I've never seen anyone claim only she would get time.
Expel Indians from USA (Score:2)
Companies ruined by H1B Indians https://www.quora.com/Do-India... [quora.com] and petition to expel Indians from USA https://www.petition2congress.... [petition2congress.com]