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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will go on trial next summer

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will go on trial next summer

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Holmes faces 20 years in prison

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Photo: Drew Kelly / Sundance Institute

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of blood-testing startup Theranos, will officially go to trial in San Jose next year, according to the US District Judge Edward J. Davila of the Northern District of California.

Federal prosecutors indicted Holmes and the company’s former president and COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani last summer, charging the pair with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud. The pair face 20 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

According to TechCrunch, the trial will begin in August 2020, with jury selection beginning on July 28th, 2020. The Wall Street Journal also reports that prosecutors have collected millions of pages of documents, and that the defense has complained about the amount that is being presented, and that the WSJ’s initial reporting might have unduly influenced the way the government regulators approached the company.

Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, claiming that it had developed a device to conduct hundreds of tests from a single drop of blood. Holmes was able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, but in 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s claims were lies, and that Holmes and others at the company had covered up results to hide that their technology didn’t work. The report prompted a major backlash against the company, ultimately leading to shut down its labs in 2016 and close down completely last year.