The jury filed out, but the lawyers continued to argue about what exhibits can be admitted. Robert Leach, a lawyer for the prosecution, said they were not given enough time to review the exhibits from the defense. Kevin Downey, Ms. Holmes’s lawyer, countered that this was more time than the defense was given.
Testimony will begin at 9 a.m. tomorrow and stretch until 4 p.m.
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As the jurors filed out, Ms. Holmes attempted to make eye contact with each of them. Few looked up.
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Ms. Holmes’s legal team showed another email of Theranos’s scientists and lab workers telling Ms. Holmes about what Theranos’s technology could do. She testified that her understanding of the company’s technology was based on what those experts told her — a key part of the defense argument that Ms. Holmes could not have intended to deceive investors because she believed the tech worked.
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That’s it for today. The nearly two-hour delay has not been explained! Back in court tomorrow morning
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Ms. Holmes testified about her interactions with Shane Weber, a Pfizer director who evaluated Theranos’s technology and testified earlier in the trial. He concluded that the company’s answers to his technical due diligence questions were “non-informative, tangential, deflective or evasive” and that Pfizer should not work with the company.
Despite Mr. Weber’s conclusion, Theranos used reports with Pfizer’s logo on them to solicit investment.
Ms. Holmes testified that Theranos continued to “talk” and also “interact” with Pfizer after Ms. Weber’s conclusions, including discussions about potential partnerships. She did not say whether any of those talks or interactions led to business deals.
Ms. Holmes testified about a “great call” a Theranos employee had with Constance Cullen, an immunology expert from the pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough.
“All in all, it was awesome, I think,” a Theranos employee wrote to Ms. Holmes in a 2010 email that was displayed in the courtroom. “Calling her every single morning for the last 3 weeks finally paid off…”
Ms. Cullen testified earlier in the trial. Her characterization of her conversations with Ms. Holmes: “There were what I’d describe as cagey responses or attempts to redirect to other topics of discussion.” Ms. Holmes had pitched Ms. Cullen on Theranos’s technology, but Ms. Cullen said in her testimony that she was dissatisfied with Ms. Holmes’s responses. “There was insufficient technical detail for us to be able to evaluate the technology,” Ms. Cullen said.
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Mr. Downey asked Ms. Holmes about the results of Theranos’s work with GlaxoSmithKline. “I remember they thought our system eliminated the need for a lab,” Ms. Holmes said. The company continued to use Theranos machines in connection with clinical studies going forward, she testified.
For most of the first two months of Elizabeth Holmes’s trial, the mood inside the courtroom has been calm and quiet. Edward Davila, the mild-mannered judge overseeing the trial, has kept proceedings orderly throughout many hours of detailed testimony about Theranos’s inner workings and business dealings.
Each day, a small group of reporters and curious spectators wait in line to have their bags scanned by security before entering the beige, windowless courtroom. Inside, Ms. Holmes sits upright in a leather chair at a table with her lawyers, staring straight ahead.
Behind her in the gallery, her mother, Noel, typically sits in a reserved row with a rotating group of family and friends who have come in a show of support. Ms. Holmes’s partner, Billy Evans, is sometimes among them.
Attendees are assigned tickets for a limited number of seats, spaced out as a pandemic precaution. Everyone in the courtroom wears a mask except those testifying.
Reporters type carefully on laptops, wary of warnings from the judge that they must have a “silent keyboard.” One juror has complained that clacking noise from keyboards was distracting.
Regular attendees bring seat cushions for the hard wood benches — and to save their seats during breaks. When exhibits are displayed on two large monitors on the sides of the room, those paying attention squint and lean in to read. One reporter uses binoculars.
Ms. Holmes’s testimony on Friday afternoon sent a jolt of adrenaline through the sleepy room. Jurors listened intently. Reporters sent panicked messages to their editors. And the more dedicated spectators who hadn’t yet trickled out for the weekend sat up straight, craning to see Ms. Holmes plead her case.
On Monday, the courtroom was packed as Ms. Holmes testified for a second day and her defense began taking shape.
The break is over and court is in session. Ms. Holmes is back on the stand.
On Monday, Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood testing start-up Theranos, aimed to rebut a key argument made by prosecutors in her fraud case: that she lied about her company’s work with pharmaceutical companies.
One of the most damning pieces of evidence prosecutors have presented against Ms. Holmes is that Theranos sent falsified pharmaceutical company validation reports to investors. Those reports displayed the logos of drug makers, which acted as proof that Theranos’s technology had been validated by them. During the trial, investors have testified that those reports helped persuade them to pour money into Ms. Holmes’s start-up.
But representatives from Pfizer and Schering-Plough testified that their companies had never validated Theranos’s technology. (Pfizer’s representative said the company had come to the opposite conclusion.) Nor had they approved of having their logos added to the reports.
On the stand on Monday, Ms. Holmes testified about studies that Theranos did with Merck, AstraZeneca, Centocor, Bristol Myers Squibb and others in 2008 and 2009. One exhibit displayed internal documentation about the success of some of this early work and showed a map of around a dozen cities around the world where Theranos’s machines were used for studies.
Kevin Downey, Ms. Holmes’s lawyer, also showed what he called a peer-reviewed journal that published the results of a study that Theranos did with Stanford University around this time. He did not mention the name of the journal.
In each example, Ms. Holmes’s understanding of Theranos’s technology was that “it performed well,” she testified. In some of the examples, Theranos was paid for its work in the studies.
Throughout her trial, Ms. Holmes’s defense team has tried making the case that there was some truth to what Ms. Holmes told investors.
“The reality of what happened at Theranos is far, far more complicated than what you have heard about Elizabeth Holmes so far,” Lance Wade, another of Ms. Holmes’s lawyers, said in his opening statement at the trial’s start in September.
The trial of Elizabeth Holmes has everything: a charismatic, attractive and youthful female defendant; celebrities; sex; vast sums of money; the long shadow of Steve Jobs; lives of real people at risk.
If it’s one of the most famous criminal cases ever to come out of Silicon Valley, it also sometimes seems like the only one. Prosecutors in Northern California brought 57 white-collar crime cases in fiscal year 2020. Even after accounting for the effect of Covid, cases have plunged from the peak of 350 in 1995.
Not every white-collar case is a tech case or related to start-ups, which means there are only a handful of times each year when someone in Silicon Valley is accused of a crime.
There are a lot of complicated reasons for this shortage of courtroom action.
A frequent explanation is that it is the fault of a lackluster U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco. Few prosecutors come to the Bay Area to make their reputations, and those that do — like Robert Mueller 20 years ago — soon move on to better jobs. Mr. Mueller took over the F.B.I.
It’s not just a local issue. Fighting white-collar crime has been less of a priority for the Department of Justice since the Sept. 11 attacks brought fears of widespread terrorism.
And for all the growing awareness of the power of tech companies, there is little public demand to hold them accountable. When David Anderson stepped down as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California early this year, he did an interview with a radio station. None of the questions from the host or from callers dealt with Silicon Valley.
Mr. Anderson, a Trump appointee, had talked about making Silicon Valley a priority for his prosecutors. His first public appearance was on a panel titled “White Collar Crime in a High-Tech World.” But he was in office for two years, too few to really make an impact. The district has had an acting U.S. attorney, Stephanie Hinds, since March.
Yet…
Read More:Elizabeth Holmes Testimony Day 2: Live Trial Updates
2021-11-22 21:12:23
