Elizabeth Holmes, celebrated tech entrepreneur, convicted in fraud case

Associated Press

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud and conspiracy Monday, ending a lengthy trial that has captivated Silicon Valley.

The jury found her not guilty of four other felony charges. On the three remaining charges, the jury was deadlocked.

Holmes, who had bowed her head several times before the jury was polled by the judge, remained seated and expressed no visible emotion as the verdicts were read. Her partner, Billy Evans, showed agitation in earlier moments but appeared calm during the verdict reading.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila thanked the jury for its service and invited them to visit him in his office.

Holmes, a once-celebrated entrepreneur, is accused of duping investors and patients about a flawed blood-testing technology that she hailed as a medical breakthrough.

Nine of the 11 counts are fraud charges and two revolve around a conspiracy to commit fraud from 2010 to 2015. During that time, Holmes became a Silicon Valley sensation, one worth $4.5 billion on paper based on her promise that Theranos’ technology would revolutionize health care.

If convicted of any of the charges, Holmes, 37, could face up to 20 years in federal prison.

After starting Theranos in 2003 as a 19-year-old college dropout, Holmes began working on a technology that she repeatedly promised would be able to scan for hundreds of health issues with just a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick. Conventional methods requires a needle inserted into a person’s vein to draw a vial of blood for each test, which must then be carried out at large laboratories.

But most people didn’t know that the Theranos blood-testing technology kept producing misleading results that led the company to secretly rely on conventional blood testing.

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