The trial of Elizabeth Holmes: Who’s who in the Theranos case

Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes is facing a criminal trial in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on charges that she defrauded investors and patients by lying about the accuracy of her company’s finger-prick blood-testing technology. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Here are some of the major players in the trial and the events leading up to it. Most of the people declined to comment or couldn’t be reached.

A Washington, D.C., native, she dropped out of Stanford University at 19 years old to start the company that became Theranos, a startup that promised to revolutionize the blood-testing industry.

After operating largely in secret for a decade, Theranos began in 2013 trumpeting its technology, which it said could test for dozens of health conditions with a few drops of blood extracted from a finger prick, eliminating the need for large needles and vials of blood.

Theranos’s valuation grew to more than $9 billion, and Ms. Holmes’s bold talk and black turtlenecks drew comparisons to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs.

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The Wall Street Journal first reported on problems at Theranos in 2015, and the company shut down three years later amid scrutiny from regulators and prosecutors. The U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of California alleges that the company’s technology was unreliable and inaccurate and that Ms. Holmes knew that, despite her public claims to the contrary.

Her trial was postponed several times, including this spring when Ms. Holmes revealed she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy in July in Redwood City, Calif.

The Defense Team

Ms. Holmes’s lead lawyer is Kevin Downey, a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP, a Washington, D.C., firm known for its litigation work. Partners Lance Wade, Amy Saharia and Katherine Trefz are also helping with her defense.

Robert Leach is the lead prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of California representing the government. Mr. Leach was one of the prosecutors in a case involving Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of Autonomy Corp. for $11.1 billion in 2011. A year later, HP took an $8.8 billion write-down related to the deal, saying it was duped into overpaying because of what it said appeared to be willfully inflated financial statements. Autonomy’s former chief financial officer was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud in 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison.

The COO

Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, a former Theranos president and chief operating officer, is charged alongside Ms. Holmes. Their cases were later separated, and his trial is scheduled for early 2022. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.

He is a veteran tech executive whose wealth derived from work at an earlier startup. He used his own money as collateral for a loan to Theranos in 2009 and later invested in the company.

In court documents, Ms. Holmes’s lawyers have indicated they may argue that she was in a decadelong abusive relationship with Mr. Balwani that left her under his control during the period in which the government alleges the two blood-testing executives committed a massive fraud. Ms. Holmes claims the abuse by her former business and romantic partner was psychological, emotional and sexual, according to the documents.

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Ms. Holmes could argue that "she lacked the intent to deceive because, as a result of her deference to Mr. Balwani, she believed that various representations were true," according to the documents.

Mr. Balwani "unequivocally denies that he engaged in any abuse at any time," according to one court filing.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila is overseeing Ms. Holmes’s trial. He was a public defender, private-practice lawyer and a local judge before he was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2011 to the federal bench.

The Board

Theranos’s board included power players in Washington and the legal and business worlds, and some could testify at her trial. Among them is litigator David Boies, who was Theranos’s outside counsel. His firm accepted Theranos stock in return for its services.

"I think everybody with hindsight says if I had known and understood everything that I know now, I would have done things differently," Mr. Boies said in an interview with the Journal in 2020.

The Employees

Several former Theranos employees are expected to testify against Ms. Holmes, including Tyler Shultz, the grandson of the late George Shultz, the former secretary of state who was a company board member. Another former employee expected to testify is Erika Cheung, a lab worker.

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Patients

Prosecutors have accused Ms. Holmes of defrauding patients and investors by falsely claiming her invention could accurately perform lab tests with just a few drops of blood. The lineup of potential witnesses includes consumers affected by the allegedly flawed technology, including a handful previously unknown to the public.

Some Theranos patients received inaccurate test results for pregnancy, blood disorders and cancer screenings, according to court filings. They often got no response when they asked Theranos about the results, the court filings say. Ms. Holmes’s lawyers have said all labs have error rates and that a few patient anecdotes absent broader accuracy data don’t prove fraud.

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