Day 39 - November 29, 2021

In motion hearings, the defense sought to introduce excerpts from Ramesh Balwani’s SEC deposition and renewed its request to admit an email concerning patient test results. The court questioned whether Balwani’s unavailability had been adequately established, examined the parties’ hearsay and completeness arguments, and deferred both matters without issuing a ruling. On direct examination, Elizabeth Holmes testified about Theranos’s retail, military, demonstration, and laboratory work. She acknowledged that no Theranos device was tested in Afghanistan or used for clinical care on Medevac flights. She described no-sample demonstrations using the null protocol, said she relied on Daniel Young’s investigation of Tyler Shultz’s concerns, and contrasted earlier favorable inspection reports with problems identified during the 2015 CMS inspection. Holmes also testified that she was raped at Stanford and alleged that Balwani later controlled, isolated, and sexually assaulted her during their relationship. She nevertheless denied that he forced her statements to investors or journalists or controlled her dealings with Walgreens, Safeway, or the Theranos board, while saying his influence affected her in ways she did not fully understand. The court admitted Theranos’s FDA submission only as evidence of Holmes’s state of mind and intent, not for the truth of its technical assertions. Holmes said her shares were worth about $4.5 billion on paper in 2014, that she never sold them because she believed in the company, and that they later became worthless. After the testimony, the court said the null-protocol portion of the request to admit Balwani’s SEC testimony appeared moot. The defense agreed to review the issue overnight, and further discussion was deferred until the next morning.