Someone asked how she hadn't been indicted a few weeks ago, and I said that the investigation was ongoing but she would surely been indicted. Everyone following this case closely saw this coming.
U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
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Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#92Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…
> It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect money but without even the faintest idea how to produce one In America, it's perfectly legal to say "I'm going to make an antimatter drive; give me a million dollars." It's illegal to say "I have a working antimatter drive prototype; give me a million dollars." Holmes and Balwani did the latter.
aka a kickstarter
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#93Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…
This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?":
Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication techniques that the computer chip industry pioneered to move tiny volumes of liquid. Theranos tried to work on that for several years before Holmes lost patience in late fall 2007 and abandoned it. At that point she pivoted to what was essentially a converted glue-dispensing robot. One of the engineers ordered a glue-dispensing robot from a company called Fisnar in New Jersey, studied its components and rebuilt a smaller version of it. It was a robotic arm on a gantry with three degrees of motion and a pipette stuck to its end, and it replicated what the scientist does at the bench. That ended up being called the Edison and it could do only one class of test, known as immunoassays. It was also error-prone. The third iteration of the technology was the miniLab, which Holmes wanted to be able to do more than just immunoassays. The miniLab didn’t invent any new techniques to test blood with. It miniaturized existing laboratory instruments and packed them into one box. By the time Theranos went live with its tests, the miniLab was a malfunctioning prototype.
The interview also explains how Holmes was able to attract so many influential people on her board. The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing non-scientists that their science worked.
[1] http://m.nautil.us/issue/60/searches/does-theranos-mark-the-...
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#94"The defendants are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud." WHY DO THIS. Each count of wire fraud is 20 years in prison [1]. If 9 counts are proven you are looking at a 180 years in prison. (life sentence). You are better off doing 2nd degree murder 3 times - at least it is a challenge to prove. Proving wire fraud sounds pretty simple - they just read a bunch of emai…
This is inaccurate in two ways. First, 20 years is the maximum guideline sentence available for wire fraud. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines has a points-like system (with points added for various attributes of the crime, like whether the accused took steps to conceal their crime, or crossed some dollar threshold) that heavily counts the prior criminal history of the accused. This is an egregious wire fraud case, bu…
+1 Thanks man. Amazing article.
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#95I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…
Thanks for sharing your experience. Criminal justice is hard stuff.
> Why the discrepancy? The 28th amendment hasn't been ratified yet.
I predict Holmes gets at least as much time as Balwani, if not more. Why? Many of the most compelling causal explanations for the (very real and concerning) gender sentencing gap aren't applicable to this case.
(On a related note, I had an exchange about gender gaps in sentencing with another HN user 3 months ago who was complaining how unfair it was that Holmes "is spending exactly zero days in prison" and got off with "a slap in the wrist" compared to Shkreli [1].)
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#96I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…
> Why the discrepancy? The 28th amendment hasn't been ratified yet. What do you mean with that? As far as I can tell, a 28th amendment hasn't even been proposed, although there is an urban legend about it that circulates in chain mails. However...even that fantasy amendment is about equal treatment of citizens and members of congress...not sure how that would apply. The closest I can see is that Holmes's mother was a…
Equal Rights Amendment. It's alive and well. Illinois just ratified it, and we need one more state to reach the magic number.
As soon as the right wing of America realizes that men are sometimes discriminated against, we won't be waiting long until one more state legislature puts it over.
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#97The indictment shows "No bail, arrest warrants issued" [0]. She'll be sitting in a prison cell by tomorrow morning. Wow. [0] https://www.justice.gov/file/1072521/download
It does not show that. Being familiar with the process, it looks like they're out on supervised release. Non-custody. No point in putting a warrant out for someone when they're at the courthouse to be arraigned.
I must be confused then. Why does the defendant section say “Warrant, no bail”?.
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you expand on your experience with indictments like this? It rings true to me that, in general, the average person would have much more compassion for 'bad' people in 'bad' situations if they could live a day in their shoes.
[site redacted] Eerily similar experience, down to the charges and the 11 counts. I don't disagree, but the average person on a jury just does what the lady in the skirtsuit tells them to do so they can get out of there. Most people you want on a jury throw away their summons with zero risk to the practice.
The dollar figures involved are three to four orders of magnitude greater in their case.
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#99Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…
Her original idea was for a wearable diagnostic device that transmitted information directly to doctors.
Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani
#100I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…
> Why the discrepancy? The 28th amendment hasn't been ratified yet. What do you mean with that? As far as I can tell, a 28th amendment hasn't even been proposed, although there is an urban legend about it that circulates in chain mails. However...even that fantasy amendment is about equal treatment of citizens and members of congress...not sure how that would apply. The closest I can see is that Holmes's mother was a…
From context, I think parent was probably referred to the Equal Rights Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
But yes, referring to a proposed amendment as "the 28th amendment" is very confusing, since there will always be multiple proposed amendments at any given point in time.