re: #113 Backwoods_Sleuth

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, the one-time billionaire and darling of Silicon Valley who promised a revolutionary blood testing technology, has been found guilty of four charges in her criminal trial.

The jury of eight men and four women were handed the case in mid-December after three months of proceedings and testimony from 32 witnesses. Deliberations lasted more than 50 hours over seven days. Jurors deadlocked on three of the 11 charges.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila will sentence Holmes at a later date.

Once heralded as the next Steve Jobs, Holmes raised $945 million from high-profile investors including the family of Betsy DeVos, Rupert Murdoch and the Walmart-founding Walton family. Theranos, at its peak, was valued at $9 billion.

Since it started on Sept.8, the Holmes trial has attracted worldwide media attention. In the final weeks of proceedings, journalists and spectators began lining up at 2 a.m. to obtain one of the 34 tickets for the main courtroom or 45 tickets for the overflow room.

Jurors heard impassioned pleas in closing arguments from the government and Holmes’ defense.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Schenk told the jury that Holmes “chose fraud over business failure. She chose to be dishonest with her investors and patients. That choice was not only callous, it was criminal.”

Schenk reminded the jury that time and time again Holmes’ own employees were telling her the technology simply didn’t work yet she kept raising money on false claims.