Massive Quantity Of Evidence Slowing Trial Process For Theranos CEO
SAN JOSE (KPIX) -- Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes faced a judge in federal court Monday, but the sheer volume of evidence in the case is delaying her trial.
The founder of the now defunct biotech company made a court appearance in San Jose.
Holmes and her company Theranos were once compared to Steve Jobs and Apple but it all came crashing down in 2016. That was when the federal government brought wire fraud and conspiracy charges against her and her partner for allegedly bilking billions of dollars from investors.
The case has generated so much evidence, collecting and looking at it is actually slowing down her trial down. Holmes is facing federal wire fraud and conspiracy charges.
Holmes and her attorneys dodged several news cameras and reporters on her way into court, giving no comment.
In court, Holmes' attorneys asked for more time to look at the case against her including 20 million pages of evidence. Prosecutors have also added 4 new terabytes of information to the case, believed to be promotional videos for Theranos.
Holmes and her business partner Ranish "Sunny" Bulwani -- who were once also romantically linked -- are accused to tricking investors after they said they developed a commercial ready portable blood analyzer that could check for 200 medical conditions with the blood drawn from a single finger prick.
Holmes, a Stanford dropout, was a star on Wall Street and Theranos grew to a $9 billion valuation. But the company's tech was never proven.
By the time Federal regulators caught on, investors including Walgreens had lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Prosecutors asked a judge to set a trial date, but the parties agreed to be back in court on July 1st to set a date which will be sometime in 2020.
Besides the criminal case against her, Holmes is also facing a civil lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It remains to be seen if the criminal case will need to be decided before the civil suit proceeds.
