Yesterday, US District Judge Edward Davila ordered jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial to go back and get un-deadlocked on three of the eleven charges against the onetime wunderkind of Silicon Valley.
The jurors did not reach a decision on those charges. But they did return a verdict last night, finding Holmes guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy against investors in a non-existent machine which she promised would perform hundreds of diagnostic tests using just a single drop of blood. The panel remained deadlocked on three charges that Holmes defrauded investors, and found her not guilty on three counts of defrauding individual patients.
Each guilty count carries a maximum term of 20 years, likely to be served concurrently. But as a longtime listener, first time caller, she may get a lot less.
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Holmes has vowed to appeal, but before that, she’ll be sentenced, and will probably lean hard into claims of abuse by her former business and romantic partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, whose trial on related fraud charges is set for later this month.
And now cue one million stories about the end of the “fake it ’til you make it” culture in Silicon Valley. As if one media darling who became a cult of personality and winds up serving seven or ten years is the antidote for all tech’s ills.
The the more things change, the more they stay exactly the same.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.