Sunil Dhawan described his reliance on Theranos personnel and records while distinguishing assumptions from firsthand knowledge. Daniel Edlin then testified about restricted information, staged devices, and demonstration procedures that he understood could conceal protocol failures from visitors.
Full day summary
Before testimony resumed, the parties disputed the admissibility of military-related exhibits and an email reporting comments from military representatives. The court deferred a decision on Exhibits 504 and 551 for further review and said Exhibit 1496 required additional foundation and context.
On cross-examination, Sunil Dhawan agreed that regulations permitted part-time laboratory directors and that daily duties could be delegated to full-time personnel. He said he relied on staff and laboratory records, and he emphasized that he had not known at the time that the listed Edison assays had stopped before his more active involvement. On redirect, Dhawan clarified that he assumed underlying data were accurate without independently substantiating them, had little contact with Theranos employees, and received no data directing him to stop a test. When the defense objected that the questioning could imply unsupported data falsification, the prosecution said it would not rely on Dhawan to establish false data, and the court took no corrective action.
Daniel Edlin then described his work at Theranos from 2011 through 2016 and said information was restricted on a need-to-know basis. He testified about controlled tours, devices concealed behind partitions, and Holmes's direction to arrange approximately 10 to 15 powered Minilab devices for a visitor. Using admitted Exhibit 959, Edlin described demonstration plans involving null protocols, possible separate laboratory processing, and an application that he understood would not show viewers when a protocol failure occurred. He also testified that he left after concluding, based on what he had observed, that Theranos could not stand behind its technology claims.