Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes attends pretrial court appearance in person
Holmes was indicted by a grand jury in 2018 and has pleaded not guilty
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes makes her first court appearance in over a year.
Hearings for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes began in a San Jose, Calif., federal court on Tuesday as discussions about her upcoming trial move forward.
Holmes, who is pregnant, showed up in-person for the pretrial motions, during which her attorneys pressed to leave certain things out of the pending trial.
Issues that were discussed on Tuesday include text exchanges, regulator reports and information related to Holmes’ wealth, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
She has another day of pretrial motions on Wednesday.
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Holmes, who was once estimated to be a billionaire, had a spectacular rise to prominence in the technology community based on her vision of building a simplified blood-testing system.
At its height, the company that she founded in 2003 was valued at more than $9 billion after raising nearly $900 million from investors, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, it is alleged that Holmes misrepresented her company, her technology and its capabilities.
After the onset of subsequent inspections triggered by a Wall Street Journal investigation, lawsuits and deals that fell through, the company had less than $200 million at the end of 2016 – less than 25% of the amount of cash it had initially raised from investors. Theranos did not generate any revenue in 2015 or 2016.
The company was shut down in 2018.
Holmes’ attorneys argued on Tuesday that prosecutors have no evidence that the blood tests didn’t work, according to The Journal.
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Theranos, 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, 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.
Holmes and Balwani were indicted by a grand jury in June 2018, which they are still defending themselves against.
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Holmes' trial is scheduled to take place in August, while Balwani’s trial is set to begin early next year.