By Michael Liedtke - The Associated Press
This Tuesday began the selection of the jury in the trial against Elizabeth Holmes, 37, considered the author of one of the great fraud of Silicon Valley.
The founder of Theranos, a company that promised to perform hundreds of medical tests with just a drop of blood, is today accused of misleading elite investors, clients and patients.
Not only did Theranos fail to meet expectations of revolutionizing medicine, it
possibly never worked
.
After the jury has been selected, opening arguments in the trial will begin next week in San Jose, California.
The case will revolve around the success and failure of Theranos, the company that Holmes created in 2003 after leaving Stanford University.
At some point it seemed that Holmes would fulfill her ambition to be the next Steve Jobs (the founder of Apple), whom she admired.
Not long ago, business magazines praised the similarities between the two, putting her on the covers with stories about her vision and her estimated fortune of $ 4.5 billion, based on the value of Theranos, whose name is derived from the words therapy and diagnosis in English.
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The company quickly failed when it was discovered that its promising invention, a machine called 'Edison', did not work as Holmes had claimed and
gave dangerous and inaccurate results in tests performed on real patients.
The entrepreneur will now be remembered more as Bernie Madoff, the New York financier whose name has become synonymous with fraud after he pleaded guilty to stealing millions through the Ponzi scheme.
If found guilty
, Holmes faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Holmes, who was in court on Tuesday, has denied her guilt since she was indicted in 2018. Her trial was delayed by the pandemic and then by her pregnancy, from which her child was born.
Some legal experts believe that could create sympathy with a jury.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos company, leaves a hearing in California in 2019. REUTERS |
Stephen LamREUTERS / REUTERS
Holmes's story got attention thanks to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal that uncovered the scam.
The HBO documentary titled
The Inventor
and a miniseries called
The Dropout
, starring actress Amanda Seyfried, are also inspired by her.
More than 200 people were summoned for jury selection, in an effort to select an impartial panel.
The process could take several days.
The trial is expected to offer tense moments over the next three months when billionaire Theranos investors and influential figures who served on the company's board of directors are called in.
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Investors, who contributed at least $ 900 million, include tycoons Rupert Murdoch, Carlos Slim, and the Walton family of Walmart.
The company's board of directors included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger;
the former Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis;
former Treasury Secretary George Shultz (now deceased) and former Wells Fargo Bank CEO Richard Kovacevich.
According to court documents,
Holmes is expected to take the stand and defend himself against the charges
.
If she does, her lawyers have indicated, she would claim that her actions in running Theranos were the result of abuse by her partner, the company's chief operating officer, and her lover, Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani, who faces a separate trial for multiple counts of fraud.
Balwani's lawyer has denied the allegations.
