Embattled Theranos founder and uncanny humanoid impersonator Elizabeth Holmes, along with her attorneys, filed six motions in federal court in August in an attempt to have the indictments and criminal charges against her thrown out before going to trial. On Wednesday, a judge denied all of them.
Holmes and her legal team have been trying all year to maneuver their way out of going to trial. Back in January, the defense team complained loudly to U.S. District Judge Edward Davila about delayed discovery materials from the prosecution, claiming the delay presented an "unworkable" situation with a trial date that was at that time set for August. In February they moved to have all 11 fraud charges against Holmes thrown out, claiming they were overly "broad" and "full of ambiguity and fudging language." An attorney for Holmes even went as far as to say that "incorrect blood tests are a fact of life," and Theranos's infamous blunders and alleged misstatements of its own successes with a finger-prick blood-testing process were therefore no big whoop.
In September, we learned that Holmes's attorneys had plans to argue that Holmes has "a mental disease or defect" that could pertain to issues of guilt in the case.
But the six motions that Judge Davila denied this week were about other legal issues. First off, as the Mercury News reports, Holmes had argued that her right to a speedy trial had been violated due to prosecutors' delays in filing two of their indictments — but Davila said much of the delay has been prompted by Holmes' own legal team and the pandemic. Holmes is scheduled to go to trial now in March.
Holmes's legal team also filed a motion suggesting that it would be difficult to find witnesses with clear enough memories of the decade-old incidents that will come up in the trial — and too much time has elapsed for the trial to be fair. Davila ruled that this was "too vague and speculative."
They also tried to get a half-dozen of the charges against Holmes thrown out because of statute-of-limitation concerns pertaining to the time of the alleged offenses, but Davila nixed that too.
Davila also rejected motions that prosecutors had somehow broadened the definition of the term "investors," regarding the entities Holmes and her co-accused, Sunny Balwani, are alleged to have defrauded. "The Court is not persuaded that there has been any expansion in the definition of 'investors,'" Davila wrote.
Holmes remains in potentially big trouble. If she's found guilty of the 12 felony counts of fraud filed against her, she is looking at up to 20 years in the clink, and a fine of up to $2.75 million, which does not include possible restitution to investors. Prosecutors have accused Holmes and Balwani of defrauding investors out of $700 million in funding for their blood-testing startup Theranos — which went belly up in 2016 about six months after a whistleblower complaint led to an SEC probe and the beginning of the criminal investigation of Holmes and Balwani.
Meanwhile, as far as we know, Holmes is still slumming it around the Marina with her new handsome, younger husband, hotel heir Billy Evans. The couple were married in a secret ceremony in June 2019. Assuming there was a prenup!
Below, please enjoy Saturday Night Live's Chloe Fineman's very excellent impression of Holmes.
Previously: Elizabeth Holmes Spotted Looking 'Happy' In The Marina, Recognized By Her Voice
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