Few days after the judgment came on ex-Theranos founder Elizabeth Homes by United States District Judge Edward Davila for defrauding the investors for a premium and advanced blood testing technology start-up that put her behind bars for more than 11 years in prison. The sentence has been passed by Judge Davila against the ex-Theranos president and former Chief Operation Officer (COO) Ramesh Aka Sunny Balwani to go to prison for nearly 13 years plus restitution.
The sentence was confirmed after 13 week long trial and long lasting arguments by the lawyers of both parties.
Ramesh aka Sunny Balwani was convicted of 13 charges against him for lying about technology that doesn’t exist, defrauding investors, and charges relating to patients.
Elizabeth Homes who was also his romantic partner, accused sunny of all this fraud as he was the main driving force behind all the operations. She also accused him that he was controlling her life too even her personal decisions.
The federal prosecutor accused sunny of being ruthless toward patients, power hungry, and fraudsters who duped investors’ money and urged to get him a maximum scented to 15 years plus restitution. While the defense lawyer argued for lesser sentences. i.e’ less than 10 months.
Balwani is an American businessman hailed from Sindh Pakistan and is two decades senior to Elizabeth Holmes. He was roped in to handle the operation as she was just 19 years old at the time of the inception of Theranos. Later both of them developed romantic relationships and started handling operations combined.
While Elizabeth Holmes we obsessed to become the Startup founder from a young age. She drops out of Stanford University to start a startup in Silicon Valley. And founded Theranos at the age of 19 years in 2008. Theranos grew exponentially to a total valuation of $9 billion dollar. They got funding from big names like Walton Family and Rupert Murdoch.
Theranos Fraud came to light when the Wall Street Journal published a report about how Theranos’ founders falsely claimed to found a blood testing technology from years that doesn’t exist.
Some people accuse Elizabeth that she was not real businesswoman but rather she was just obsessed with the life of Apple CEO and Co-founder Steve Jobs and trying to copy him at all the levels such as dropping out of Stanford University, starting a startup that creates never before technology, Wearing a black chicken neck T-shirt and blue Denim pant. But looks like she forgets to copy him where it actually needed.
Holmes and her then Boyfriend Sunny Balwani were accused by her former employees that Elizabeth Holmes was controlling and abusive and was famous for scolding the workers.
