Elizabeth Holmes faces sentencing in a matter of days after all three requests she made for a new trial were denied
Elizabeth Holmes had filed three motions for a new trial, including one based on a witness' visit to her home, but a judge denied all of them Monday.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
- Elizabeth Holmes has been denied 3 requests seeking a new trial, including one based on a witness' visit to her home after she was found guilty.
- The Theranos founder is due to be sentenced in 10 short days.
- Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the four counts on which she was convicted.
Elizabeth Holmes is days away from sentencing after losing her bid for a new trial.
On Monday, the judge in the Theranos founder's case denied all three of her motions seeking a legal do-over.
Holmes had requested a new trial after one of the government's star witnesses, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, allegedly went to her house in August and expressed regret that his testimony helped convict her, saying prosecutors made things at the now-defunct blood-testing startup look worse than they really were.
Regarding that motion, Holmes was initially granted a small victory, as the judge ordered a hearing into whether prosecutors engaged in misconduct around Rosendorff's testimony. As a result, Holmes' sentencing, which was previously set for October 17, was pushed back to November 18.
At the hearing, however, things took a turn — and not in Holmes' favor.
Rosendorff said he stood by his testimony during her trial and that he visited her home because he was "distressed" at the idea of her child, born last year, growing up without a mother.
"I don't want to help Ms. Holmes," Rosendorff said at the hearing. "The only person that can help her is herself. She needs to pay her debt to society."
Besides that motion, Holmes had also asked for a new trial on the grounds that prosecutors portrayed her relationship with Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani differently in each of their trials. Balwani, who is Holmes' ex-boyfriend and former president and COO of Theranos, was also convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from his time at Theranos.
Holmes said the government emphasized the differences in age and experience between them in Balwani's trial to help convict him but did no such thing in her trial, where it might have led to Holmes being acquitted on more charges. (Balwani is 20 years Holmes' senior.)
In her third motion, Holmes said she was denied emails showing prosecutors failed to take appropriate steps to preserve a Theranos database that she claims would have helped her during her trial, even though the government produced these emails for Balwani's trial.
White-collar criminal defense experts previously told Insider all three motions were Hail Mary efforts unlikely to succeed.
The Stanford dropout and one-time Silicon Valley darling was convicted in January on four counts of fraud and conspiracy after investigations into the company uncovered exaggerated financials, a pattern of inaccurate test results, and the use of third-party testing equipment, among other issues.
Sentencing for Balwani, who was convicted on 11 counts of fraud and conspiracy, has been postponed from November 15 to December 7.