In the end, it will have succeeded in deceiving investors and the media but not in convincing the jurors. After three months of trial and more than a week of deliberations, the former boss of the start-up Theranos Elizabeth Holmes, who promised to revolutionize blood tests, was found guilty on Tuesday of several charges of fraud by a California court. It will be fixed on his sentence later, which is likely to be less than 20 years.
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of four out of eleven charges, including defrauding investors and bank fraud for raising money knowing her machine had never actually worked. However, she was acquitted of four other charges, including cheating on patients and doctors, and the jury could not agree on three more. In theory she could face up to 20 years in prison with a fine of $ 250,000 for each of the four charges, but the judge should pronounce sentences carried out in parallel, and not one after the other. Because the ex-leader has no previous record, her sentence should ultimately be well under 20 years, with the possibility of parole after serving half of it.
Steve Jobs as a model
Elizabeth Holmes had founded Theranos in 2003, at the age of just 19, and promised diagnostic tools that were faster and cheaper than those in traditional labs. With the help of a careful story, she had managed in a few years to gain the trust of luminaries and to raise funds from prestigious investors, attracted by the profile of this young woman, a rarity in the male world of Californian engineers. .
In the early 2010s, she notably wore a black turtleneck sweater in explicit reference to Apple founder Steve Jobs, to whom the world of “tech” constantly compared the young entrepreneur when she was at the top. of his glory. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supported her, as did former Defense Minister James Mattis or media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who is investing more than $ 100 million in Theranos. At its peak, the company is valued at nearly $ 10 billion, and majority shareholder Elizabeth Holmes is the head of a fortune of $ 3.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
The story was beautiful. As a child, she hated needle pricks during blood tests. She will therefore invent a simple, fast and efficient machine that will allow everyone to carry out hundreds of blood diagnoses from a single drop of blood taken from the fingertip. But in 2015, the Wall Street Journal raises the huge pot of roses: the fabulous machine promised by Theranos has never worked.