Elizabeth Holmes, a once-shining Silicon Valley star promising a blood test revolution with the startup she founded, Theranos, was found guilty of investor fraud Monday by a jury in a California court where she was on trial.
After a process that lasted more than three months and about 50 hours of consultations, the jurors ruled – unanimously – that she was guilty of fraud against investors, but acquitted her of some charges, while not agreeing on others that she was accused of.
The conviction of the 37-year-old – who founded Theranos in 2003, at the age of 19, and promised a diagnostic machine faster and cheaper than those of traditional companies in the industry – means she faces the prospect of being sentenced to many decades in prison. Her sentence will be announced later by the federal court.
Thanks to her promises, her persuasion and her dynamic profile, the young businesswoman managed within a few years to gain the trust of investors of enormous prestige, something rare in the male-dominated world of Californian engineers wandering in the “Silicon Valley”. She was backed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who invested more than $ 100 million in Theranos.
At its peak, the company’s value had reached nearly $ 10 billion and Mrs. Holmes, its major shareholder, had a fortune of $ 3.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
But in 2015, the Wall Street Journal made the explosive revelation that Theranos’s famous diagnostic machine never worked.
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