By Jody Godoy
SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) – A U.S. prosecutor told jurors on Thursday that if Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes had been truthful with investors and patients about her blood-testing startup, the venture never would have attracted critical funding and revenue.
“She chose fraud over business failure. She chose to be dishonest,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk told jurors at the start of closing arguments. “That choice was not only callous, it was criminal.”
Holmes, 37, is on trial in San Jose, California, in a case that has shed light on Theranos’ failed endeavor to revolutionize lab testing with small machines that used only a few drops of blood.
Theranos was once valued at $9 billion and vaulted Holmes to Silicon Valley fame. Wealthy private investors including media mogul Rupert Murdoch invested millions in the company after meeting with the founder, who was known for her Steve Jobs-like black turtleneck.
Prosecutors allege Holmes lied to those investors and retail customers, including by overstating what Theranos machines were capable of and the accuracy of its tests. She faces nine counts of fraud and two counts of conspiracy.
Testifying in her own defense during the three-month trial, Holmes has said she did not intend to mislead anyone, and that the company’s laboratory directors were responsible for ensuring test accuracy.
Theranos collapsed after the Wall Street Journal published a series of articles starting in 2015 that suggested its devices were flawed and inaccurate. Holmes was indicted in 2018.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in San Jose, California; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Matthew Lewis and Jonathan Oatis)
