Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes' criminal trial begins
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On August 31, jury selection for the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes begins in San Jose, California.
ABC reports that the news comes just days after Holmes accused her former boyfriend and Theranos COO, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani of abuse.
According to the Northern District of California United States Attorney's Office, Holmes is charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud stemming from a , "multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients.".
In 2014, Elizabeth Holmes founded a company valued at $9 billion that would purportedly bring about a revolution in the diagnosis of disease.
With a few drops of blood, Theranos promised that its Edison test could detect conditions such as cancer and diabetes. .
Major investors from Henry Kissinger to Rupert Murdoch backed the startup company.
But by 2015, the seams were coming apart, and within a year, Ms Holmes was exposed as a fake. The technology she touted didn't work at all, and by 2018 the company she founded had collapsed.
Ms Holmes, now 37, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the 12 charges of fraud against her. She has never previously told her side of the story.
Her trial which begins next month, US v Elizabeth Holmes, et al, will be closely watched and she is expected to plead not guilty.
The BBC reports that Holmes' lawyers will now argue that her ex-boyfriend and business partner, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, sexually abused and emotionally controlled her at the time of the alleged crimes.
Mr Balwani who faces the same fraud charges, called the claims "outrageous".
It will be up to a jury to decide with what sympathy or harshness to judge the woman who fooled everyone from statesmen to secretaries
