A former executive of the blood-testing startup Theranos has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison, accused of misleading investors into the company’s operations.
In the ruling, released Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila in Northern California said the financial statements prepared by Ramesh Balwani were “not just projections, but lies” and “a genuine evasion of fair business practices.” .
Balwani, 57, was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in July for making fraudulent claims about the company’s medical technology capabilities that put patients at risk.
Theranos announced it had developed a device that could identify hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood from a finger prick.
Despite knowing the technology was imprecise, the company continued to raise money from investors, including billionaires such as Larry Ellison, former head of Oracle technology, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and began selling the devices in stores.
Balwani’s sentence was less than the 15 years in prison demanded by federal prosecutors, but significantly longer than the four to 10 months demanded by defense lawyers.
The US Attorney’s Office has also asked Edward J. Davila to order Balwani to pay investors $804 million (765.5 million euros) in damages. The judge postponed the decision to a later hearing.
Davila had already sentenced Theranos founder and ex-partner of Balwani, Elizabeth Holmes, on November 18 to 11 years in prison and to pay 121 million dollars (116 million euros) in damages to ten investors.
The company from Silicon Valley, California, which was valued at more than ten billion dollars (about 9.6 billion euros), was dissolved in September 2018.
Since the Theranos fraud case came to light in 2015, the story of 38-year-old Holmes has been embodied in numerous media content, including television series, documentaries and “podcasts.”
Source: DN
