Prosecutors and defense proposed September 12 for a sentencing hearing in a court filing Tuesday, which said that “in light of ongoing proceedings in a related case, Labor Day would be appropriate after 2022,” Holmes said. A reference to the upcoming trial of the ‘ second-in-command in Theranos who faces the same charges as him. In a court order signed Wednesday, Judge Edward Davila, who is presiding over Holmes’ case, scheduled a sentencing hearing later in September. By that time, it would have been more than a full year since his trial began.
According to the indictment, Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison as well as a $250,000 fine for each count. Judge Davila will ultimately decide Holmes’ sentence as he sees fit, using sentencing guidelines as a reference.
Balwani’s trial, originally scheduled to begin this week, has been delayed, first because of the length of Holmes’ trial – which spanned four months, including deliberations – and then because of the spread of the Omicron version of the coronavirus. In a separate court filed on Tuesday, the prosecution and defense in Balwani’s trial have proposed March 9 as the date to begin jury selection. Balwani pleaded not guilty.
Holmes, who started Theranos at the age of 19, claims to have developed revolutionary blood testing technology that can perform accurate and cost-effective tests for a range of conditions using just a few drops of blood. Once regarded as the next Steve Jobs, Holmes raised $945 million from investors, taking his startup to a valuation of $9 billion and making him a paper billionaire in the process. But his technique didn’t work as he claimed, and it all came crashing down.
After 50 hours of jury deliberation over the course of seven days, Holmes was found guilty of four charges, including one count of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud involving specific investors. The jury acquitted Holmes on three counts of defrauding patients and one count of conspiracy to defraud patients.
There were three additional wire fraud counts involving other investors, which the jurors could not reach a unanimous agreement on, and for which Judge Davila ruled a wrong. Prosecutors indicated in a proposed joint filing that it intends to drop these three counts and plans to file a formal motion to do so by the end of this week.
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