Elizabeth Holmes Testimony: Updates From Day 6

Ms. Holmes mostly appeared collected on Tuesday, though her face sometimes clouded over with frustration or concern. But she broke into a wide smile when delivering answers to Mr. Leach such as “I’m not sure, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” She also smiled while correcting him when he misspoke, saying “billion” instead of “million.”

Prosecutors Take Aim

Under cross-examination, Ms. Holmes sometimes admitted to mistakes. Her handling of The Journal’s investigation into Theranos’s claims, she said, was a “disaster.”

“We totally messed it up,” she said.

Ms. Holmes also conceded, after prodding, that whistle-blowers including the former Theranos employees Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung were right when they spoke up about problems in the start-up’s lab.

In other instances, Ms. Holmes pushed back, blaming a desire to protect Theranos’s trade secrets for her actions. She said she had not tried to “intimidate” John Carreyrou, the Journal reporter who exposed the company’s flaws, or Ms. Cheung and Mr. Shultz, who were sources for Mr. Carreyrou.

“We wanted to make sure our trade secrets weren’t disclosed,” she said.

In many cases, Ms. Holmes said, she simply didn’t remember. She didn’t recall joking about Mr. Carreyrou’s heritage, how many tests Theranos had run at the time of his article or what her salary was. Mr. Leach, the prosecutor, frequently pulled up text messages and emails to refresh her memory.

Abuse Accusations

Ms. Holmes closed her direct testimony with bombshell accusations of abuse against Ramesh Balwani, her boyfriend of more than a decade, who worked at Theranos and was indicted as a co-conspirator in fraud. Mr. Balwani, who goes by Sunny, was emotionally and physically abusive, she said.

Mr. Balwani frequently criticized her and controlled what she ate and her schedule, Ms. Holmes said. He kept her from members of her family because they were a distraction. And he told her to “kill” her old self to be reborn as a new, successful entrepreneur.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/elizabeth-holmes-trial-testimony.html