The fraud trial of fallen Silicon Valley mogul Elizabeth Holmes has begun, with the defense and prosecution painting dueling portraits of the Theranos founder. Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of duping investors, patients and customers.
The two sides are now expected to spend the next three months trying to sway a 12-person jury impaneled to hearing the evidence in a case airing allegations that Holmes used her startup, Theranos, as a scheme to realize her dreams of becoming rich and as famous as one of her role models, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
He cast Holmes in a dark light, depicting her as a conniving entrepreneur who duped investors, customers and patients for years, even though she knew her startup, Theranos, was nearly bankrupt and its much-hyped blood-testing technology was a flop. Some of the most damning evidence may be presented by a former top finance officer at Theranos who will testify that the company only had $650,000 in revenue from 2011 through 2014, according to Leach. Yet Holmes was telling investors and other people that Theranos would generate $140 million in revenue in 2014, Leach said.
The fraud committed by Holmes “is a fraud on Main Street and it’s a fraud in Silicon Valley,” Leach told the jury. Although she didn’t succeed, Wade insisted that Holmes never stopped believing she was on the verge of a breakthrough that would realize her ambitions. Many investors thought she would too, one of the reasons that Theranos once was valued at $9 billion —- with half that amount belonging to Holmes.
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