Elizabeth Holmes, the former top woman of the American startup Theranos, was found guilty on Monday of, among other things, defrauding investors and endangering patients. That reports Reuters news agency. Holmes, 37, faces up to 20 years in prison.
The jury found Holmes guilty on four of the 11 charges. She allegedly defrauded investors for millions and lied to patients about lab results. She was acquitted on four other counts, including misinforming the public. Three charges were dropped because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict after seven days of deliberation.
Also read: The fall of a start-up superstar
Holmes rose to fame with Theranos, a medical startup that claimed to have developed a testing device that could do comprehensive blood tests with tiny blood shots. Traditional lab testing would be a thing of the past, said wealthy investors like Rupert Murdoch, who put millions into the company. At its peak, the company was worth $9 billion.
In reality, the company used conventional test equipment from Siemens to conduct investigations and the promised proprietary machines did not work. Articles from the Wall Street Journal brought this to light and prompted a large-scale legal investigation against Holmes and Theranos. The company ceased to exist in 2018, many investors lost their money. Money the prosecutors say they would never have put in Theranos, if Holmes had been honest.
#Theranos #CEO #Holmes #partly #guilty #fraud #case