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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

#61

Post by briandear »

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…

So she can’t be a director of a public company? Other than Yahoo, who would even consider hiring her?

This “punishment” doesn’t seem like one. She should be in jail.

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

#62

Post by DannyBee »

People keep complaining about lack of jail time. As has been repeated in a number of subcomments: The SEC cannot send people to jail. Full stop.

They have only civil authority.

They refer criminal cases to the US attorneys/DOJ, and offer assistance. All evidence suggests they did so here.

The decision to criminally prosecute or not is out of their hands.

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

#65

Post by jartelt »

Waterluvian wrote: post #25

Is Holmes still rich after this? I can't tell just how much of her wealth she's being forced to return in form of shares.

Do we know if she was rich before? Maybe she was able to cash out a lot of her shares during some of the financing rounds, but she also could have just been "rich" on paper by owning many Theranos shares. If she was rich by virtue of holding Theranos shares, her wealth has decreased a ton in the last couple years since the value of the company has surely plummeted.

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

#66

Post by oculusthrift »

FussyZeus wrote: post #48
aphextron wrote: post #29

So... the punishment for getting caught in massive fraud is that you just have to give back the stuff you got through fraud? Sign me up.

Unless of course you steal Holmes' car. Then you'll probably be killed, or at best, incarcerated for 10 years. Remember kids, the rich are not playing the same game the rest of us are.

It helps when you’re the opposite of a black male.

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

#67

Post by minimaxir »

Coding_Cat wrote: post #56
minimaxir wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth nothing that one of Theranos's VC funders, Tim Draper, did defend Holmes despite the fraud allegations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973102 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/theranos-investor-cl...

Tim Draper also stands to gain from Theranos being reviewed positively, valid product or not, being an investor.

That's true, which just compounds the problem of newbie investors thinking "fake it until you make it" is OK because they get positive reinforcement from their investors.

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

#68

Post by briandear »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #52
enlightenedfool wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

let's dispense with political bullshit. A protracted lawsuit would cost the government millions of dollars with an uncertain outcome. Instead, Holmes is paying the government 500K and returning shares. The SEC is going to court against Balwani, where the case is presumably stronger. the plebs is strictly better off and not everything the government does is bad.

So if it’s too expensive, we should let criminals walk? Fraud is a crime you know.

She should be in jail. Kids have gone to prison for marijuana possession and this lady walks? Martha Stewart and that Martin guy went to prison for less.

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

#69

Post by username223 »

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 .

Most poor criminals know that, too. Shkreli openly taunted the criminal justice system, and that doesn't end well for anyone.

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

#70

Post by hluska »

briandear wrote: post #61
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…

So she can’t be a director of a public company? Other than Yahoo, who would even consider hiring her? This “punishment” doesn’t seem like one. She should be in jail.

I don't know if I agree with you. Personally, I can't imagine the humiliation of carrying this around with me...
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