Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani in courtroom on Wednesday.
JOHN G MABANGLO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
A US choose on Wednesday sentenced former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to 12 years and 11 months in jail on costs of defrauding buyers and sufferers of the blood testing startup led by Elizabeth Holmes, a spokesperson for the US legal professional’s workplace confirmed.
US District Choose Edward Davila in San Jose, California, imposed the sentence on Balwani, who was convicted by a jury on two counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of fraud in July.
Prosecutors mentioned Balwani, 57, conspired with Holmes, 38, to deceive Silicon Valley buyers into believing the corporate had achieved miniaturized machines that might precisely run a broad array of medical diagnostic exams from a small quantity of blood.
In the meantime, the corporate secretly relied on conventional strategies to run exams and offered sufferers with inaccurate outcomes, prosecutors mentioned.
Holmes, who began the corporate as a university pupil and have become its public face, was indicted alongside Balwani, her former romantic accomplice, in 2018.
Davila later granted every a separate trial after Holmes mentioned she would take the stand and testify that Balwani was abusive of their relationship. He has denied the allegations.
Holmes was convicted in January on 4 counts of fraud and conspiracy however acquitted of defrauding sufferers.
Davila sentenced Holmes to 11-1/4 years in jail at a listening to final month, calling Theranos a enterprise “dashed by untruths, misrepresentations, plain hubris and lies.”
Prosecutors subsequently argued Balwani ought to obtain 15 years in jail, saying he knew Theranos’ exams had been inaccurate from overseeing the corporate’s laboratory operations, and determined to “prioritize Theranos’ monetary well being over sufferers’ actual well being.”
The probation workplace had beneficial a nine-year sentence.
Balwani’s attorneys requested for a sentence of probation, arguing that he sought to make the world a greater place by means of Theranos and was not motivated by fame or greed.
As soon as valued at $9 billion, Theranos promised to revolutionize how sufferers obtain diagnoses by changing conventional labs with small machines envisioned to be used in houses, drugstores and even on the battlefield.
The corporate collapsed after a collection of Wall Avenue Journal articles in 2015 questioned its know-how.
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