(This article was originally published on 30 September 2021 with the headline "The Theranos & Elizabeth Holmes Saga: Where Has the Fraud Trial Reached Now?"
It has now been updated after a jury found Elizabeth Holmes guilty of four charges on 4 January 2022.)
Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of now dissolved health technology company called Theranos, has been found guilty of four out of 11 charges of fraud, including conspiracy to defraud investor, The Guardian reported on Tuesday, 4 January.
She was also acquitted on three charges, such as conspiracy to defraud patients, and two charges that were regarding patients who had received inaccurate test results.
On 31 August 2021, a federal criminal case had commenced against Elizabeth Holmes, and against Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani, who used to be the company's president and chief operations officer, the BBC reported.
In what is officially called United States v Elizabeth A Holmes, et al, Holmes, along with Balwani and other associates, has been accused of perpetrating “massive fraud” for cheating investors of $700 million by swindling them regarding a blood-testing technology that the company claimed to be a huge breakthrough in the medical world.
At its peak, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, and Holmes' personal net worth at $4.5 billion.
This technology supposedly made blood tests cheaper and easier compared to the conventional ones, because its tests required tiny amounts of blood that could be extracted from the patient with the help of a fingerstick.