Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes request to suppress evidence denied
The former billionaire CEO of now-defunct health technology company Theranos, has been denied a move which will hurt her defence.
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A US judge has denied a request by former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to have certain evidence – including customer complaints and testing results – suppressed in her fraud trial.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Edward Davila of Northern California denied Ms Holmes’ defence team’s request to have the evidence suppressed in the case, which alleges Ms Holmes engaged in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors.
Ms Holmes’ lawyers argued that the evidence in question – which also included a Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services report – should not be able to be used because her defence would be hurt due to missing test results from the Laboratory Information System.
That LIS database is said to have contained millions of test results, without which, her defence argues, it is not possible to prove that the technology produced unreliable results.
The defence has also argued that without those results, witness testimonies would be anecdotal and would not prove that Theranos’ technology was less reliable than that of competitors.
RELATED: Theranos Elizabeth Holmes’ lavish lifestyle to be revealed
The judge said that the information from the database alone would not provide a conclusive determination of whether the tests were accurate, and therefore as evidence it would be “speculative” in nature.
It is not clear why the data from the LIS is missing and both sides have blamed each another.
Spectacular rise to spectacular fall
Elizabeth Holmes had a meteoric rise as a young visionary in the health tech field. Once estimated to be a billionaire, she founded the start-up Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19.
The technology claimed to revolutionise the blood testing industry, allowing comprehensive blood work and analysis from a simple finger prick test. If possible, the test would come at a fraction of the cost of the current technology.
At its height, the company was valued at more than $US9 billion after raising nearly $US900 million from investors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But then, after the onset of a Wall Street Journal investigation, doubt began to circulate over the validity of the company’s claims.
Ms Holmes was indicted in June 2018, with allegations she had deceived investors for years over the company’s performance.
RELATED: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is pregnant
Theranos, Ms Holmes and former president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani agreed to a settlement with the SEC, which alleges that they committed a “massive fraud” in lying about one of the company’s key products.
In addition, Ms Holmes was stripped of control of the company and is barred from serving as an officer or director at any public company for the next decade.
She was forced to return to investors 18.9 million shares, which the SEC said were obtained through fraud, and paid a $US500,000 penalty.
Ms Holmes and Mr Balwani were charged with raising more than $US700 million from investors through a fraudulent scheme that took place over the course of years.
They were indicted by a grand jury in June 2018, which they are still defending themselves against. Holmes’ trial is scheduled to take place in August.
This story originally appeared on Fox News and is reproduced here with permission
Originally published as Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes request to suppress evidence denied
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