Jurors said they were deadlocked on three of 11 counts in the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes as deliberations continued for an eighth day in one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile criminal fraud cases.
Judge Edward Davila, presiding over the trial in a federal courthouse in San Jose, California instructed the jurors to continue deliberating and try to reach a verdict, according to US news wire reports.
The development was the latest twist in a months-long trial that some legal observers have cast as an important litmus test of the justice system’s ability to prosecute alleged fraud at Silicon Valley start-ups.
Holmes faces 11 charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud at Theranos, the blood testing start-up. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which each carry up to 20 years in prison.
Jurors on Monday sent a note in which they said they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three counts, but did not provide further detail on which counts they were deadlocked on.
The Holmes trial has engrossed tech industry watchers and fuelled a debate over the limits of Silicon Valley’s start-up culture at a time when venture capital is pouring in at a record pace.
Holmes, now 37, founded Theranos in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University. At its peak, the company was valued at $9bn while its founder became a media darling who was profiled in multiple magazine cover stories.
But Theranos would face a barrage of critical media reports and regulatory investigations, sending the company in a tailspin and leading to its break-up in 2018.
Holmes had claimed Theranos’s technology could perform a wide range of tests using just a few drops of blood, though the company largely relied on commercially available machines.
The trial has largely focused on whether Holmes intended to defraud investors in her company.
Prosecutors presented reams of documentary evidence and testimony from 29 witnesses, who detailed problems at Theranos’s laboratories and the company’s allegedly evasive communications with investors.
The evidence provided the most detailed account to date of how Theranos operated, revealing multiple instances in which Holmes appeared to promote misleading information.
Holmes admitted to placing the logos of pharmaceutical groups including Pfizer on Theranos documents she sent to investors, even though they had not endorsed the company’s technology.
“She chose fraud over business failure,” prosecutor Jeff Schenk said during closing arguments. “She chose to be dishonest. This choice was not only callous; it was criminal.”
The defence team tried to cast Holmes as an earnest entrepreneur who failed to deliver on promises to transform the blood testing industry. They also attempted to shift blame to others at Theranos, including Ramesh Balwani, who oversaw the company’s finances as its president and chief operating officer.
Testifying in her own defence, Holmes accused Balwani, with whom she had a romantic relationship, of mental and sexual abuse, allegations his attorney has previously denied.
“Elizabeth Holmes was building a business and not a criminal enterprise,” Kevin Downey, her attorney at Williams & Connolly, said during closing arguments.
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