The verdict in the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes falls next week. This week, the business owner convicted of fraud is asking to be spared a prison sentence, he reports Reuters.
In a court document on Thursday, Holmes’ lawyers are asking that the sentence be limited to 18 months of house arrest, followed by community service. The rationale behind the request is that they claim prison is an unnecessary tool to deter future crime.
Furthermore, the lawyers believe that Holmes is “a human being who has a lot to give” and not the “emotional, robotic caricature” that the media and public have portrayed.
– No defendant will be made a martyr for public passion. We ask that the court consider, as it should, the real person, real society and the complex circumstances surrounding the crime, the lawyers concluded.
Pure fraud
The background to the trial is Holmes’s promise of gold and green forests to investors who bet on his blood testing technology in 2015. Investors poured in and the company was valued at nine billion dollars in 2015, making Holmes the youngest woman in the world. billionaire.
The problem, however, was that the technology didn’t work.
After an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2015, with many subsequent investigations and articles, the company went bankrupt in 2018 and Holmes was indicted for fraud and had to step down as head of the company.
The allegations included, among other things, Theranos reporting that 10-15 major pharmaceutical companies had endorsed the technology, which was not true, where Theranos employees are said to have sent studies with Pfizer and Schering-Plough logos to investors.
The company is also said to have lied extensively about the efficiency and use of the technology and that it has been used by, among other things, the US military. Additionally, the company reportedly made over $100 million in 2014, when in reality it made around $100,000.
The verdict of the trial will be issued on November 18.
