Prosecutors urged a federal judge to brush aside Elizabeth Holmes’s argument that she should be acquitted after a jury convicted her of fraud earlier this year.
Lawyers for the former Theranos Inc. chief executive officer previously told U.S. District Judge Edward Davila that the jury’s verdict in her case should be set aside because the evidence at her trial didn’t support it.
Government lawyers countered in a court filing Friday that the “overwhelming weight of the evidence admitted at trial supports the jury’s conviction” of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and fraud on Theranos investors.
The record established at trial is “replete with examples” of Holmes and her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani “working together and conspiring to effectuate a scheme to defraud investors.” The two “were constantly in communication via email, text message, and in-person meetings” about the company’s laboratories, financials, patient blood-testing, and relationships with Walgreens, investors and visits by regulators, according to the filing.
At the end of the government’s case, lawyers for Holmes “simply asserted” that the evidence is insufficient to convict her, prosecutors said in Friday’s filing. After all the evidence was presented, Holmes’s attorneys verbally renewed the argument “and offered to file a written submission supporting her argument,” according to the filing. But the deadline for her written filing came and went without her lawyers filing anything.
Lance Wade and Kevin Downey, lawyers representing Holmes, didn’t immediately respond to emails sent after regular business hours seeking a response to the government’s filing.
Holmes was convicted in January of four out of 11 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud and acquitted of four counts she deceived patients, while her jury was unable to reach a unanimous consensus on three other counts. Balwani’s trial started in March.