Ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes through her lawyers is blaming prosecutors’ “investigative failure” for the loss of a company database that would have shown the level of inaccurate blood-testing results.
In a filing yesterday, Holmes’ lawyers claim that in the absence of information in the Laboratory Information System (LIS) database, the judge should not allow jurors to hear anecdotal stories from medical professionals and the general public about erroneous Theranos test results.
“The reason that the government has built its case on this teetering card house of irrelevant evidence is that it lost — or, worse, did not want to analyze preindictment — the actual evidence of testing results in this case,” Holmes’ lawyers said.
Prosecutors have claimed that Theranos executives purposely destroyed the LIS database and its three years’ worth of blood testing data months after a federal grand jury requested its contents. They say they still have evidence documented by regulatory agencies as well as whistleblower testimony to bolster their fraud case against Holmes, according to Bloomberg.
Holmes and Theranos were once Silicon Valley darlings, with Holmes claiming that her company was set to revolutionize blood testing with technology that could analyze tiny amounts of blood. Forbes in 2015 even recognized Holmes as America’s richest self-made woman based on Theranos’ multibillion-dollar valuation at the time.
Investigative reporting, though, soon dismantled the claims Holmes was making about Theranos’ technology, raising questions about whether she and others had misled investors. The downward spiral culminated in the 2018 shutdown of the company, with the SEC criminally charging Holmes and former Theranos president Sunny Balwani over what it described as a “massive fraud.”
Balwani’s trial is expected to follow the Holmes trial, which is expected to start in July.