Failed startup CEO Elizabeth Holmes testifies to defend herself against the 11 counts of criminal fraud she faces in connection to the Theranos blood-testing firm she founded as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout.
Until it happened, it was uncertain to outsiders whether Holmes would speak during her trial. Even by Friday afternoon, legal experts stressed it was unlikely, given the risky move that could open her to cross-examination by the prosecution and possibly damage her credibility with the jury.
Holmes said she had been working at Stanford on microfluidics and on diagnostic machines in Singapore and “thought I could combine them and miniaturize some of the tech I had seen in the lab." That led her to file her first patent application in September 2003, before her sophomore year. It was ultimately granted in 2007.
The former CEO’s testimony concluded after just an hour. Her testimony is expected to continue Monday and into Tuesday. The court is then scheduled to break for the holidays and resume Nov. 29th. Holmes’ defense team also argued that the testimony of Theranos patient Erin Tompkins, who said she received a test incorrectly indicating she was HIV-positive, should be struck as prosecutors did not call her doctor to testify.
One of the clearest examples of potential fraud presented by the prosecution came in the form of manipulated lab reports that Theranos sent to investors and the media. The company sent the results of its own tests to prospective pharmaceutical partners, Pfizer and Schering-Plough. It would then go on to affix the logos of those companies to the reports and represent them as having been validated and endorsed by those companies, prosecutors argued.
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