Theranos

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves after a hearing at a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on July 17, 2019. [Image courtesy of Reuters/Stephen Lam]

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to mostly deny ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ request to inspect grand jury selection records.

Holmes, according to the prosecutors’ July 31 response to Holmes’ July 30 motion, is adopting a strategy of other defendants indicted during the COVID-19 pandemic — to suggest without basis that was the grand jury that returned second and third superseding indictments against her was not selected at random from a fair cross-section of the community.

“Defendant Holmes is not entitled under the [Jury Selection and Service Act] to the majority of the materials she seeks because such materials are not necessary to allow her to assess whether to move to stay proceedings or dismiss the indictment. …

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes leaves after a hearing at a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on July 17, 2019. [Image courtesy of Reuters/Stephen Lam]

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to mostly deny ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ request to inspect grand jury selection records.

Holmes, according to the prosecutors’ July 31 response to Holmes’ July 30 motion, is adopting a strategy of other defendants indicted during the COVID-19 pandemic — to suggest without basis that was the grand jury that returned second and third superseding indictments against her was not selected at random from a fair cross-section of the community.

“Defendant Holmes is not entitled under the [Jury Selection and Service Act] to the majority of the materials she seeks because such materials are not necessary to allow her to assess whether to move to stay proceedings or dismiss the indictment. …

Elizabeth Holmes back during her black turtleneck days at Theranos — in 2014 [Photo by Max Morse for TechCrunch TechCrunch – TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2014, CC BY 2.0]

A federal just in California this week signaled that the trial of ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and president Sunny Balwani likely won’t happen until next year.

The COVID-19 pandemic had already caused Judge Edward Davila to push the trial start date back to October. Davila indicated during a July 20 hearing held over Zoom that an October start was not going to happen, according to media reports.

Holmes’ lawyers used the Monday hearing to argue that the expansive nature of the government’s evidence — millions of documents and 150 or more witnesses — made the case difficult to defend against.

Davila declined to exclude evidence or witnesses but said prosecutors need to provide Holmes with more witness…

Former Theranos president Sunny Balwani has asked a federal judge to postpone his trial on fraud charges until April 2021 and to allow him to renew his passport so he may visit his sick mother in India.

Federal prosecutors agreed to the trial postponement, according to a court filing. No indication was given of their stance on the passport request. Balwani’s mother is in rapidly declining health and was hospitalized on April 29, according to a court filing.

The trial of Balwani’s co-defendant, Theranos’ ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, was recently moved from July 28 to Oct. 27, 2020, due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, federal prosecutors told the court that they would like to file a superseding information containing two wire fraud counts relating to patients who paid for Theranos testing, widening the timeframe of the allegations and including company investors as fraud victims.

On Friday, Holmes’ attorney told the…