The Theranos Story, ch. 67: the Holmes/Balwani indictments stay, Holmes’ defense strategy fails

What Elizabeth Holmes needs is Perry Mason and a good scriptwriter from the 1960s. On Tuesday, Judge Edward Davila hit the ‘REJECT’ button on Holmes and ‘Sunny’ Balwani’s six motions since August to have the July indictments by a grand jury–a second indictment of 14 July, then a third and operative charging document of 28 July, dismissed. In a single compact, well-reasoned order, all six motions were denied for both cases:

1. Pre-indictment delay. The first indictment was made in June 2018. The findings were that the delays were due to defense motions which were agreed to by the government and the judge, then the pandemic which suspended all in-person court proceedings and then became remote. The separate trial dates were moved to October 2020 and then at defense requests due to preparation and witness travel, moved to March 2021. 
2. Statute of limitations on the fraud counts from investors. Even the definition of investor was narrowly defined here as securities purchasers. However, the broader interpretation, for example business partners such as Safeway [TTA 8 Oct] and board members, are also included as investors. 
3. The indictments did not provide fair notice of the charges. Fair notice was found. Again, investors include business partners and even their board members who had promissory or convertible notes.
4. Duplicity of the multiple counts was not found.
5. Failure to omit doctors as victims of the Theranos scheme; doctors were omitted after the first indictment. The judge did find some lapses in prosecution language.
6. All the dismissal requests for the first indictment applied to the later two.

It seems as if the defense, particularly Holmes’, threw a lot at the wall to lessen charges against their clients, and none of it stuck. One wonders how Holmes (who did marry a wealthy man) but particularly Balwani, are affording all this legal churn.

Unless there are publicly released findings on Holmes’ mental defect defense, alleging her inability to discern right from wrong (a/k/a insanity defense lite, Twinkie Defense II, High Anxiety) [TTA 18 Sept], hold off on popcorn purchases till next spring. San Jose Mercury News (which incorrectly reverses the analogy, sorry), Wall Street Journal, and the Register (UK), which helpfully provides a PDF of the court order.