Appeal by Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes denied by 9th Circuit
SAN FRANCISCO - Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her then-boyfriend, Sunny Balwani, both lost their fraud conviction appeals, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on Monday.
The 54-page decision, written by Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, upheld lower court rulings that found Holmes guilty of felony fraud, where she was sentenced to 11 years in prison and is now serving that time in a minimum security prison in Texas.
Her four-month trial was held in San Jose in 2022.
A jury convicted her of orchestrating a blood-testing scam by her Palo Alto company, Theranos, that she started after dropping out of Stanford University in 2003.
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Balwani was sentenced to 13 years for his role in the scam.
Balwani had said that federal prosecutors distorted evidence to bias the jury against him.
Nguyen rejected Holmes' attorneys' arguments that the trial judge shouldn't have let in some testimony from co-workers, and that a regulator's report could have misled the jury.
Holmes could ask the Ninth Circuit to re-hear the case, or take it up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Their appeal was heard in June.