Theranos COO Sunny Balwani Found Guilty on All Counts
After five days of deliberation, a jury in San Diego convicted Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, former chief operating officer of Theranos, of all 12 criminal fraud charges. The U.S. District Court set Balwani's sentencing hearing for November 15, 2022. Balwani can face up to 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, "plus restitution for each count of wire fraud and each conspiracy count," per CNN.
The verdict follows Elizabeth Holmes's conviction of fraud and conspiracy in January on 11 counts (one wire fraud charge was dropped for Holmes). Criminal charges were filed against both of them in June 2018, and their trials were severed after Holmes's legal team decided to include accusations Balwani and their relationship in her defense.
"He impacted everything about who I was, and I don't fully understand that," Holmes testified at her trial, alleging she was victim of an abusive relationship.
Holmes founded Theranos when she was 19 years old, raising nearly $1 billion from investors. Though she was the face of the company, the prosecution alleges that Balwani was a key partner throughout it all. "Balwani is not a victim," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Schenk said in his closing argument. "He is a perpetrator of the fraud. … Mr. Balwani knows that the biggest threat to fraud is the truth."
Balwani’s attorney, Jeffrey Coopersmith, said in a statement, "We are obviously disappointed with the verdicts. We plan to study and consider all of Mr. Balwani’s options including an appeal."
The rise and fall of Theranos, a blood testing startup, has been documented extensively, from John Carreyrou's book Bad Blood to HBO's documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley to the Hulu limited series The Dropout starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes and Naveen Andrews as Balwani.
"There’s an almost Shakespearean aspect to this story," Naveen Andrews, who plays Balwani, told Town & Country. "I thought of Macbeth, with Sunny as Lady Macbeth."
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