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Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

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Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#31

Post by charlesdm »

daxorid wrote: post #8
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Du…

> shouldn't these two simply be in prison right now? Compare and contrast with Shkreli sentencing. Some animals are more equal than others.

Some animals at least are likeable as people. Others are not.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#32

Post by enlightenedfool »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #11
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Du…

SEC doesn't put people in prison, it can refer to Justice Department for prosecution. Whether it does or not, depends on the circumstances of the case. They prefer quick resolution rather than years of litigation.

Yeah, it's easy for the government to threaten plebs with prison for misreporting a few thousands in taxes...because they can't defend themselves like Holmes does.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#33

Post by edanm »

daxorid wrote: post #14
charlesdm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin Shkreli was, honest to god, an idiot. He got several chances to "kiss the ring" and show remorse, and what did he do? He put some extra oil on the fire and kept acting like an idiot until the very last moment. Sometimes you need to realise when to fold and suck it up.

Alternative take: it's disgusting and offensive to the foundational concept of blind justice that punishment is more highly correlated with charisma and obsequiousness to judges than it is to actual crimes committed.

I kind of agree [1], but I don't think that's why there's a difference between the cases.

First of all, the Theranos people haven't yet been brought up on criminal charges, but it's still possible they could be, no?

Secondly, I think there were lots of material differences between the two cases that caused them to be prosecuted differently. You can't just lump every instance of fraud as the same thing.

[1] The reason I only kind-of agree: you're phrasing it in a way that makes it seem clear. But I can easily phrase it as "it makes sense that defendants who show remorse, and are therefore less likely to commit the crime again, will get a lighter sentence, as opposed to defendants who are much more likely to repeat the crimes".

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#34

Post by hourislate »

daxorid wrote: post #8
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Du…

> shouldn't these two simply be in prison right now? Compare and contrast with Shkreli sentencing. Some animals are more equal than others.

Remember who was on the Board of Theranos. These upstanding Americans will never serve a day in Prison including Holmes and Balwani. Shkreli on the other hand was thrown in prison for raising the price of a drug, making money for his investors and offering a reward for one hair.

Justice has been served.

Junk away....

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#36

Post by matthewmacleod »

hourislate wrote: post #34
daxorid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shouldn't these two simply be in prison right now? Compare and contrast with Shkreli sentencing. Some animals are more equal than others.

Remember who was on the Board of Theranos. These upstanding Americans will never serve a day in Prison including Holmes and Balwani. Shkreli on the other hand was thrown in prison for raising the price of a drug, making money for his investors and offering a reward for one hair. Justice has been served. Junk away....

Shkreli was actually thrown in jail for comprehensively defrauding investors.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#37

Post by aje403 »

daxorid wrote: post #8
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Du…

> shouldn't these two simply be in prison right now? Compare and contrast with Shkreli sentencing. Some animals are more equal than others.

I'm not really sure that's fair. In fact, IANAL and have zero knowledge of law, but the two had seemingly nearly opposite intent of their crimes. Who knows what was going on in the girl's head, but it sounds more like a bunch of idiot investors gave a lot of money to a dreamer who wanted to make an impact and didn't know when to quit and fold her hand rather than an elaborate con. That gets taken into consideration before pitchforks come out.

At a certain point you have to wonder why did a 21 year old get paid 700 million dollars on good faith to start a pharmaceutical company with little oversight? I remember reading about the board a few years ago and just looked it up again. Several generals, Henry Kissinger...huh?

This is all seems pretty obvious in hindsight.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#38

Post by jessaustin »

leggomylibro wrote: post #15
daxorid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shouldn't these two simply be in prison right now? Compare and contrast with Shkreli sentencing. Some animals are more equal than others.

Well, Holmes and Balwani didn't actively and loudly antagonize most of the country. Most rich criminals know that when you scoff at the law, you should do it quietly .

It also helps to have lots of family and friends who have given lots of money to lots of politicians. For nonviolent crime like this, the law really is different for different people.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#39

Post by diggan »

desireco42 wrote: post #18
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Du…

I wish we could do this to politicians, once caught in lie and fraud, bar them from taking any public office for 10 yrs :). I agree she got away lightly.

Funny fact, in 2013, Italy actually banned Silvio Berlusconi from holding public office for 6 years. But, that doesn't stop him from participating and trying to win elections anyways...

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#40

Post by jljljl »

GoRudy wrote: post #6

Why don't they have to serve jail time for this?

Two major differences:

The SEC can only bring civil charges, not criminal ones. So SEC investigations won’t bring jail time by themselves, although if the FBI or other agencies get involved that could happen

Also, Holmes and Theranos settled, which probably had some impact that on the penalties they faced

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