Former Theranos COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who promised to revolutionize blood tests, was convicted of fraud on Thursday July 7, six months after a similar conviction for his former partner Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the fallen Californian start-up.
He pleaded not guilty to all counts, but the San Jose court jury found him guilty on all counts of fraud against the company’s investors and patients, court documents show. consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP). Mr. Balwani, like the former leader, faces several decades in prison. He will be sentenced on November 15. Until then he remains free on bail, but the judge has increased the amount of the latter to 750,000 dollars.
Theranos’ promises to make diagnostic tools faster and cheaper than traditional labs had sparked enthusiasm from many businessmen and high-level figures, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the former defense minister James Mattis or media magnate Rupert Murdoch. But the start-up, founded in 2003, collapsed after the scandal of 2015, when the wall street journal had revealed that the technology had never worked as expected.
“Fake it till you make it”
Elizabeth Holmes, who started her business at just 19, was found guilty of fraud against investors but acquitted of certain charges on January 3, after more than three months of trial. Her sentence is due on September 26, but she has appealed.
Mr. Balwani’s trial opened on March 22, after several postponements due to Covid. The prosecution highlighted the responsibility and experience of the director of operations who supported the young boss and supported her in her decisions.
The two former leaders and ex-lovers were initially to be tried together, before their cases were separated. During her trial, Elizabeth Holmes assured jurors that her romantic relationship with “Sunny” Balwani had been enamelled with forced sexual relations and that he was responsible for the technical problems of his company.
With her charismatic personality and polished narrative, she embodied one of Silicon Valley’s mantras: “fake it till you make it” (“fake it until you make it”). His lawyers asserted his good faith in court. “Failure is not a crime, persevering and not succeeding is not a crime”, said for example Lance Wade. But according to the prosecutor, the ex-entrepreneur deliberately deceived her partners to raise funds, more than 700 million dollars in all.