CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

Judge Davila is on the bench. He says juror No 9 received two negative COVID-19 tests. "We’re happy for that juror and that’s why we’re in session today," he says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

Judge says he's going to excuse Juror No 7 b/c she told the court over the weekend she couldn't shift her work schedule. The juror is 19 and works part time in customer service to help her mom pay bills. She said in voir dire, her dad died 4 yr ago and he could get violent.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

In light of excusing Juror No 7, the judge is moving up juror alternate No 1, and now the 12-member jury panel is 8 men, 4 women.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

Oh boy. Judge Davila just read my prior tweet aloud to the attorneys and everyone in the courtroom about the NJ woman who shouted about the Me Too movement to the jurors. The judge reminds everyone that interfering with jurors could face investigation and not to do it.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

S/o to the CAND pr guy who's reading my tweets this morning.
270c.png
1f62c.png
270c.png


Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

Moving on. Judge Davila brings in Juror No 12, who disclosed she once worked at KPMG as an admin assistant after an ex-Theranos employee who testified last week mentioned hiring KPMG. After some q's, it doesn't appear there are any conflicts.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5h

With that, the judge called in the rest of the jury. Former Theranos Controller Danise Yam is back on the stand. Prosecutors are up, asking her about Theranos' financial statements from 2010 and 2011. (Buckle up, testimony is about to get boring.)

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says in 2010 Theranos made $1.4 million in revenues and lost $16.2 million, and in 2011, it made $518k an lost $27.66 million. She says at the end of 2011, Theranos' accumulated deficit (ie. its total losses since the co was founded in 2003) was $104 million.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says in 2012, Theranos lost $57 million and had no revenue. It's accumulated deficit at the end of 2012 was $161 million, she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says in 2013, Theranos lost $92 million and had no revenue. Yam hasn't said what Theranos' accumulated deficit was at the end of 2013, but doing the math on that I'm guessing it was $283 million.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says Theranos issued stock in 6 rounds, with the first round costing 17 cents per share, and the last round $17 per share in 2014-2015. A document shows investors invested a total of $944.6 million in Theranos representing 533 million shares.
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says in 2015(?) Theranos revenues were $14k. Prosecutor asks if Yam thinks things got better for Theranos that year. "Um, no," she replies. By the end of 2014, Theranos' accumulated deficit was $376 million, she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

A prosecutor walked through Theranos' contracts w/ pharmaceutical cos, including Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Navartis and Schering-Plough. The contracts range from $25k to Theranos' $900k with Pfizer. Most are under $300k. Yam says Theranos had no revenue generating contacts w/ the DOD.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says from 2010 to 2014, Elizabeth Holmes' annual salary at Theranos was $200k, and in 2015 it was $400k.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says she approved invoices for the private jet that Elizabeth Holmes used to travel for work, but she says she doesn't know where Holmes' went when she flew on the jet, and she doesn't recall how much in total Theranos spent on Holmes' air travel.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

Yam says in Sept 2013, Holmes provided her and financial advisor Aranca with revenue projections that estimated Theranos' revenues would be $50 million at the end of 2013, $90M end of 2014 and $112M end of 2015.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4h

A prosecutor points to a 2014 email that shows Elizabeth Holmes estimated Theranos' revenue projections for 2015 would be $100 million. Yam says they provided Aranca with that estimate as the firm was assessing Theranos' value.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Prosecutor Robert Leach shows Yam more revenue estimates provided to Arcana. One document shows at one point Theranos' rev estimates for 2014 were $140 million and $990 million for 2015. Yam says she doesn't know where those numbers came from.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Leach wraps Yam's direct pointing to Theranos' 2015 tax return, which shows the company made $429k in revenues that year and had an accumulated deficit of $585 million, which represents its total losses from 2003 through* 2015.
 
Last edited:
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Holmes' defense counsel, Lance Wade, begins cross getting Yam to acknowledge that cash and revenue aren’t the same, and that there was a U.S. financial crisis occurring in 2008-09 when Theranos was struggling. She also concedes that Theranos always made its payroll.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Holmes' attorney has pulled up a document showing Celgene made more than $1 million in payments to Theranos, and the American Burn Association paid Theranos ~$290k for a U.S. Army burn study.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Holmes' attorney tries to get Yam to acknowledged that she solicited advice from KPMG about Theranos' stock value. Yam says she doesn't remember if KPMG "raised the issue," or if Theranos did.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3h

Holmes attorney asks Yam if she recalls that KPMG concluded Theranos' share pricing was "properly valued and presented." She says she doesn't recall KPMG's conclusion. Before moving on to another topic, we're taking a trial break. brb

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

We're back, Wade asks Yam if she reported to Balwani when he joined Theranos in 2009. She says she reported to Elizabeth Holmes, but she shared Theranos' financial information with Balwani.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Wade brings up the document showing Theranos expected to generate $140 million in 2014 and $990 million in 2015. Yam says she doesn't know who prepared the doc, for what purpose, when it was prepared, who saw it or how the estimates were created. (Surprised the thing is admitted)

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Yam acknowledges that in July 2014, she provided Balwani with Theranos' annual deferred revenue estimate of $169 million.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Wade brings up a Dec. 2014 email showing Balwani asked Yam to defer $100 million from Celgene and Theranos' $165 million 2013 deal to 2014. "It’s not as if $100 million is going to fall out of the sky in 2014," Wade says. "That has been booked in cash [in 2013]." Yam agrees.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Wade gets Yam to acknowledge that Theranos received hundreds of millions of dollars from customers, including Safeway, Walgreens and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Theranos spent $68 million on R&D in 2013, which accounted for 69% of its $92 million operating losses that year.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Wade points out that Yam is a CPA licensed accountant and dif accounting methodologies can lead to different value ranges of a company. Wade points to a document in which Theranos was valued at $9.5 billion* or $1.9 billion depending on the methodology. (*Correcting prior tweet)

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Before wrapping cross, Yam says Holmes never sold her Theranos stock. On a short rebuttal, prosecutor points out that deferred revenue is $ paid for services/products that haven't been received for and the $9.5B estimate was just that. And now onto the next witness: Erika Cheung.
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Erika Cheung is a former Theranos lab associate who worked oct 2013-april 2014 and resigned b/c she didn't feel comfortable processing patient samples w/ Theranos' tech. Holmes' counsel had sought to limit Cheung's testimony on hearsay grounds.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says she graduated from UC Berkeley and Theranos had "probably the most popular booth" at a career fair, so she applied and interviewed first w/ Balwani and then Holmes. Cheung says she was "star struck" by Holmes at the time, b/c she "had charisma" and was articulate.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says before she started working at Theranos, she thought Holmes was a leader, symbol of female empowerment and example for women in STEM. "It seemed like a company that I wanted to be apart of ...And that I wanted to help grow," she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says when she joined Theranos in 2013, she had to sign an NDA, and was told by Holmes' brother, Christian Holmes, who was a lead project manager, that secrecy was important and workers couldn't post on LinkedIn that they worked at Theranos.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung said she worked with Theranos' blood analyzers used to test patient blood samples. She's explaining Theranos' various blood-testing devices, including the Edison, the 4.0 and the "modified" Siemens' Advia 1800 machine.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung said Theranos' Edison device could only perform 4 and "at max 12" tests offered in its "testing menu," which lists dozens of potential blood tests, and third-party modified devices could do more tests than the Edison.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says she and other Theranos employees gave their own blood in exchange for cash in order to test Theranos devices' accuracy.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

The judge excused the jury for a break, and Holmes' counsel raised objections to "virtually all of the documents that are about to be offered and the testimony too do not involve our client in any way." He says Cheung is not an expert and Holmes was not aware of any the docs.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Prosecutor argues these are business records and the issues were raised "directly to Balwani," who is a co-defendant. The issues were "frequent and generally known," so they should be admissible. "Ultimately these issues do percolate up to these defendants in this case," he says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Prosecutor says Cheung's emails are business records, b/c email was the primary means of communication workers at Theranos used. Defense counsel disagrees and wants to brief the issue: "The law on the ninth circ is clear... emails are not admissible. They're layered hearsay."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Holmes' counsel says Cheung's job interview with Holmes is the longest interaction she ever had with Cheung and she has no connection to Holmes that would allow her emails to come in. "The CEO is not responsible for every communication that occurs within the company," he says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Holmes' atty says Cheung was an entry level employee, and there were several levels b/w her and the lab director. If these issues were raised to Holmes, prosecutors can call the person who raised them, but 'they can’t just dump every issue in the lab' on Holmes, he says.
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Judge Davila is allowing prosecutors to spend the last 15 minutes of trial today questioning Cheung on 2 exhibits, but there's going to be an extended hearing on this issue tomorrow morning before trial.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung is back on the stand and the prosecutor asks her about an email in which she wrote quality control tests weren't passing. The atty asks how she used emails at Theranos. She says she used email regularly and email 'groups,' like 'Normandy 911,' to troubleshoot problems.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
50m

Feds point to Cheung's Normandy 911 email re quality control tests failing. Balwani replied that "this is beyond acceptable performance" and Holmes asked if there was enough left in the blood sample to do another test on a non-Theranos device and how fast the issue can be fixed.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
46m

Suraj Saksena replied to Holmes that they resolved the issue by removing 2 outlier data points so that the tests could pass quality control. But Cheung says she doesn't think removing the data fixed the problem. "They were ignored and disregarded for quality control," she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
44m

The judge excused the jury and witness, and we'll be back here tomorrow. Before breaking for the day, Holmes' counsel tells Judge Davila he may submit a brief with case law about whether emails can be admitted as biz records before tmr morning's hearings. And w/ that we're out.
 
Elizabeth Holmes trial: Theranos’ use of workers’ blood led to whistleblower’s concerns
Erika Cheung had been ‘star struck’ by Holmes
By Ethan Baron | ebaron@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: September 14, 2021 at 3:39 p.m. | UPDATED: September 14, 2021 at 4:11 p.m.

Theranos whistleblower Erika Cheung’s first inkling that the company’s technology fell short of founder Elizabeth Holmes’ claims arose because the startup used its workers’ blood to check how well tests performed, the former laboratory assistant testified Tuesday.

“Employees would essentially donate their blood to Theranos for cash,” Cheung told jurors on the second day of Holmes criminal trial, without saying how much was paid. When Cheung’s blood was used to “validate” Vitamin D testing on Theranos machines, “it would always come up that I was deficient,” she testified. But her results didn’t show the same problem when her bloodwork was done on another company’s machines that Theranos kept upstairs to conduct tests its own machines couldn’t perform.
More at link: Elizabeth Holmes trial: Theranos used workers' blood
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/eli...pshare|com.apple.UIKit.activity.PostToTwitter

9/14/21

The government’s next witness, Erika Cheung, quit her job as a lab associate after seven months and became a whistleblower, giving a TED talk and being interviewed for numerous news stories.

Cheung testified that she was “star struck” by Holmes during her job interview.

“She had a charisma to her, she was very articulate,” Cheung said. “She had a strong sense of conviction to her mission.”

Cheung told the court that she was excited to work at Theranos based on “very little information” she was given. “I asked a bunch of questions about the company, and [Holmes] said you’ll find out when you start working here,” Cheung said.

Theranos was once valued at $9 billion.

“At the time she was one of the few female entrepreneurs to get the unicorn status,” Cheung recalled, adding that Holmes “could potentially set an example for other women to get excited about science and engineering.”

Cheung testified that her orientation was conducted by Holmes’ brother, Christian Holmes, who instructed her not to add Theranos to her Linkedin profile. Cheung said that while she was at Theranos the Edison, which was used for processing blood samples, only ran 12 tests and that all other tests were done on third-party machines.

“The Edison analyzer could only run one type of test for one patient at a given time,” Cheung said.
 
Wed., Sept. 15th:
*Trial continues (Day 3) (@ 9am PT) - CA – for *Elizabeth A. Holmes (34/now 37) (CEO of Theranos) charged (March, 2018) & indicted (6/14/18) & arraigned (6/15/18) with 9 counts of wire fraud & 2 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and charged & indicted (4/11/20) with fraud relating to a patient's blood test. Another count of wire fraud was added in 2020, bringing the total number of felony charges to 12. Plead not guilty. No bond. Faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison & up to $2.75 million in fines, plus restitution, & $250K for each individual count of wire fraud & conspiracy.
Defrauding investors out of $700 million in funding for their blood-testing startup Theranos.
Trial began on 8/31/21 with jury selection. 12 jurors of 7 men & 5 women (6 Caucasians, 4 Hispanics & 2 Asians) with five alternates (2 men & 3 women). Juror #7 excused now jurors: 8 men & 4 women.
Trial began on 9/8/21.
The Court trial days will be Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, possibly other half days. The Court may modify the trial time & set either 8:30am-2pm or 9am-2pm & possibly 30-minute breaks in between. Judge Edward J. Davila presiding. Jury selection on 8/31 & 9/1, trial dates 9/8, 9/10, 9/14, 9/15, 9/17, 9/21, 9/22, 9/24, 9/28, 9/29, 10/1, 10/5, 10/6, 10/8, 10/12, 10/13, 10/15, 10/19, 10/20, 10/22. 10/26 so far.
Indictment & court info from 4/11/20 thru 8/26/21 & jury selection (Day 1-3) 8/31/21 to 9/2/21 & trial (Day 1) 9/8/21 reference post #492 here:
CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud
9/14/21 Tuesday, Trial Day 2: In a filing today, prosecutors in US v. Elizabeth Holmes asked the judge to grant immunity to ex-Theranos employee Surekha Gangakhedkar, who the feds want to question re Theranos allegedly threatening employees. Gangakhedkar invoked the 5th Amendment and doesn't want to testify. Judge Davila is on the bench. He says juror No 9 received two negative COVID-19 tests. "We’re happy for that juror and that’s why we’re in session today," he says. Judge says he's going to excuse Juror No 7 b/c she told the court over the weekend she couldn't shift her work schedule. The juror is 19 and works part time in customer service to help her mom pay bills. She said in voir dire, her dad died 4 yr ago and he could get violent. In light of excusing Juror No 7, the judge is moving up juror alternate No 1, and now the 12-member jury panel is 8 men, 4 women.
Government witnesses: Former Theranos Controller Danise Yam is back on the stand on direct. Asked her about Theranos' financial statements from 2010 & 2011. And defense attorney Lance Wade on cross.
See posts #501 to 503 for more info here:
CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud
Erika Cheung is a former Theranos lab associate who worked oct 2013-april 2014 and resigned b/c she didn't feel comfortable processing patient samples w/ Theranos' tech.
See posts #504 to 505 for more info here:
CA - Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Wire Fraud
Trial continues on 9/15/21.
*Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani (53/now 56) (CFO & President of Theranos) – Intervenors motion hearing on 8/26/21 & trial set to begin on 1/11/22 with jury selection & trial starts on 1/18/22. No update 9/6/21.
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
10h

Today marked the first full day of witness testimony in Elizabeth Holmes' criminal fraud trial, and a Holmes fan stole the show. Here's my recap of today's action inside (and outside) the courtroom.

XUI287BS


Holmes Fan's #MeToo Callout To Jurors Draws Judge's Ire - Law360

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4m

Good morning! It’s another day waiting in line outside the San Jose federal courthouse for US v Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes’ attorneys have arrived, and Balwani’s counsel are in line. There seem to be fewer reporters today and more unfamiliar faces. Mostly spectators, I assume.

E_VV4SOVQAkSjK1
 
Last edited:
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
43m

Replying to
@doratki
A young couple in front of me are being interviewed. The husband - who’s an RN - said he had vacation days and came to “check it out” with his wife who read Carreyrou’s book and heard a podcast about Theranos. They were here yesterday too.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
42m

The husband said when he heard about the bogus blood tests he thought it was ridiculous. The wife took work off to watch the trial and she said it was worth it. “I’m so obsessed with it,” she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
19m

It’s remarkable how often I’ve overheard certain members of the press outside the courthouse saying Holmes committed fraud w/o qualifying their statements in any way.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
35m

Elizabeth Holmes has arrived to the courthouse with her mother. They’re holding hands. This is the first time she’s showed up alone with her mom and no attorneys or men with her.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2m

Judge Davila is back on the bench to hear arguments on whether Erika Cheung's Theranos emails constitute business records and are admissible. (Get ready legal nerds, it's our time to shine!)

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
13m

Few know this, but the overflow courtroom is the luxury suite of the Robert F. Peckham federal courthouse.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3m

Replying to
@doratki

Prosecutor John Bostic says Holmes' counsel cites a 9th Circ. 1994 case - Monotype Corp. PLC v. Int’l Typeface Corp. - to support its arg that emails aren't business records, but times have changed. "I don’t think I had a computer in 1994," he says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3m

Bostic says the 9th Circ's ruling this year in United States v. Lischewski made clear that emails can be business records, but Holmes' counsel Lance Wade points out that Lischewski ruling is an unpublished decision and not precedential.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1m

Holmes' counsel says the Lischewski case involved two emails, but the feds want dozens of emails, including casual exchanges, and that's overbroad. Bostic replies that Wade's arguments are "premature and they miss the point" b/c Cheung will lay a foundation for the emails.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
59s

Replying to
@doratki
Judge Davila "we have come a long way haven’t we," and he recalls the days of when notes were delivered via "pneumatic tubes." (wat) He thinks some emails are biz records and don’t fit in the casual conversation standard, but the gov't still has to lay a foundation.
 
Last edited:
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
59s

Wade says he understands the court's ruling, but he wants to flag a Cheung email that Holmes wasn't on in which Balwani says "I am already extremely irritated." The docs don’t go to our client, he says adding "this is a wire fraud case and not a deficient lab practice case."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3m

Wade also wants emails between Erika Cheung and the now deceased ex-Theranos board member and ex-Sec of State George Shultz and his grandson Tyler excluded, b/c they're multiple levels of hearsay.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2m

Holmes' counsel says "All of those involve multiple levels of hearsay that would be a great law school question," but they're not admissible. Wade says if the gov't wants the evidence in, they can't "smuggle" it in through Cheung's emails. They need to call Schultz.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
56s

Prosecutor wants Cheung's emails in b/c he says it's relevant to why she reported Theranos to CMS and it speaks to her "state of mind." Holmes' atty says Cheung's state of mind and that her "hopes and dreams were dashed" is irrelevant to Holmes' wire fraud case.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
42s

Holmes' atty says Cheung's examination is designed to pull out "highly inflammatory" emotional testimony from Cheung. "This is in the cheapest seats in the house w/ respect to our client, if Theranos itself were on trial it would be one thing but it’s not, our client is on trial"

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1m

Prosecutor says the gov't is not trying to elicit emotional testimony from Ericka Cheung, but he notes that witnesses "don’t need to testify as automatons" and they should be able tell their story.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
25s

Judge Davila says he agrees w/ Wade that the gov't shouldn't try to elicit emotional testimony from Cheung, but "she doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who is going to do that." Wade also points out that there are other gov't witnesses who can speak to Theranos whistleblowing.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
18s

After about an hour of args, Judge Davila doesn't exclude any of Cheung's emails outright, and he called in the jury. Sounds like we have a lot of objections ahead of us today.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
55s

The jury is back, and Erika Cheung is on the stand. Prosecutor John Bostic continues her examination with - big surprise here - emails!

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
3m

Cheung is testifying on emails explaining her responsibilities as a lab technician and the process of how Theranos teams used different Theranos and non-Theranos devices to test blood samples. So far, testimony is pretty technical and unemotional.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
51s

Cheung says blood analyzers failed quality control tests frequently and Theranos deleted two outlier data points for QC tests to pass. There was no standard protocol for outlier deletion & "this is essentially cherry picking," she says, to suggest the data is better than it is.
 
Last edited:
Dorothy Atkins@doratki
3h

Cheung testifies that Sunny Balwani instructed her via email not to share Theranos' device quality control issues with other teams. She said she raised her QC concerns with her bosses, including the medical director and VP Daniel Young.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki
3h

Cheung says she told Young that Theranos' Edison device didn't work, and it "wasn't performing reliably or effectively for standards that you would typically see for medical diagnostics. That was the obvious explanation of why the QCs were failing."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Cheung says Theranos didn't define an outlier, or have rules or standard procedures regarding what outliers can be removed, but it was "something kind of stated you can remove 2 out of the 6 data points," so that Theranos quality control data was better than it was.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

Prosecutor wants to show the jury some more Cheung emails and Holmes' counsel raises their first objection. The judge allows the gov't to proceed. Cheung's email says "I don't feel comfortable running the patient sample. You're going to have to find someone else to do it."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

We're taking a ~40 minute break. Today's trial is going to go longer than usual and will break around 3. Brb

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

I wonder if I keep making the joke that at 1 p.m. cocktails are served in the overflow courtroom it will happen one day...

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
2h

We're back. Erika Cheung is back on the stand, testifying about Theranos' proficiency tests and her conversations with Tyler Shultz, the whistleblower and grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz who served on Theranos' board.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung sent Tyler Shultz the results of Theranos' proficiency tests, which she says showed that Theranos' Edison devices gave "two very different results" when tests were performed more than once.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says she shared the results of Theranos' proficiency tests and her concerns with Theranos' medical director, quality control director and "eventually" Sunny Balwani, but she doesn't mention Holmes.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Prosecutor points to data showing that 25.6% of certain Theranos quality control assay tests failed in March 2014. Cheung says that failure rate was "pretty standard" for Theranos, and it was "very uncommon" for those tests to fail on other non-Theranos devices.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung says the proficiency testing issues were just a sample of the problems she saw at Theranos, which led her to resign in 2014.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Prosecutor asks Cheung how she felt when she decided to quit. Holmes' counsel objects, but the judge overrules the objection.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Erika Cheung testifies that "It was starting to get very uncomfortable, and very stressful for me working at the company" b/c of Theranos' quality control issues. "I was attempting to tell as many people as I could, but just not seeming to get through to people."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung said she quit after she met w/ Balwani in his office to express her concerns. "He seemed irritated that I was raising the issue again"..."He was more irritated and angry that I was bringing up this information," and said what do you know about stats or lab diagnostics?
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung said she quit Theranos, which was her first job out of undergrad and paid $19 per hour, and didn't have another job lined up. She said she never thought to contact Elizabeth Holmes directly b/c she thought Tyler Shultz was "basically communicating with her."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Over objections, gov't shows Cheung a lengthy email that Tyler Shultz wrote Elizabeth Holmes. The upshot is she thinks Tyler was telling Holmes the tests had problems. (It's kinda surprising the judge is letting Cheung testify about what she thinks Shultz's email means.)

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Over more objections and an overruled request to strike testimony, Erika Cheung recalls meeting George Shultz, telling him about the problems with the tests and that the people who were doing them were "not very experienced."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Over more objections, Erika Cheung testifies that in June 2015, a man was waiting in a car outside her job then, and when her co-workers walked with her to her car, "the man jumped out of a car and handed me this letter warning from Theranos’ lawyer David Boies."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung said the letter threatened litigation against her and accused her of disclosing Theranos' trade secrets to then-WSJ reporter John Carreyrou, and defamed Theranos. Almost immediately after, she said she reported Theranos to CMS and filed a complaint a few months later.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Prosecutor wants to ask Erika Cheung what her current job is. (She launched her own nonprofit called "Ethics in Entrepreneurship" in response to the Theranos debacle.) Defense counsel objects on relevancy grounds, and the judge is holding a sidebar.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

One legal point that may be worth noting and which the judge mentioned this morning, when Erika Cheung filed her complaint against Theranos, CMS was already investigating the company.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

After a short sidebar, the judge appears to have sustained Holmes' objection and prosecutors wrap Cheung's examination without getting her to mention she now runs her own nonprofit focusing on ethics. Lance Wade is up now for Holmes.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Wade begins Erika Cheung's examination by asking her to explain who was on her 'core EILSA' team and who was her direct report. After some confusion, she's naming the 14 people who worked on the team, which includes a few folks with PhDs.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
1h

Cheung describes an 11-member Theranos team - called the "binders" - which included Tyler Shultz. Before moving on, the judge called a lunch break. We'll be back in 45!

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
13m

We're back. The jury is in the courtroom and Erika Cheung is on the stand. Cheung picks up where she left off, naming the multiple folks on the various Theranos testing teams and their leaders.
 
Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
9m

Wade asks Cheung who her managers were. She says lab directors Mark Pandori, who has a Phd, and Adam Rosendorff, who is a medical degree. Both of their LinkedIn pages don't name Theranos as their former employer.
E_WqekQVEAAit8y

E_WqgWHVEAIekxb


Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
4m

Cheung acknowledges that Theranos had a CLIA certified lab and its lab directors had special qualifications they needed under fed regs, but she doesn't know the specifics. She adds that her job in the lab was "very low level," doing the "basic operations" of running lab tests.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
49s

Holmes' counsel Lance Wade is asking Cheung about the qualifications of her supervisors, including Daniel L. Young, who went to MIT or "the Good Will Hunting school," says Wade. Cheung responds she doesn't know.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
6s

After Cheung mentioned she knew Young had a dissertation, Wade asks Cheung if she knows what the dissertation was on. "I don’t remember," she replies. "Something complicated?" Wade asks. "Yes," she says.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5m

Wade's line of questioning seems to be trying to call into question Erika Cheung's lab experience and qualifications.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
22m

Wade has asked Cheung a series of questions about specific regulations regarding certified labs and tests. He's not nearly as aggressive as some attorneys I've seen during cross, telling her at one point "don't sell yourself so short," and "I know it's been a long time."

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
11m

Wade points to documents prepared in the CLIA lab that were signed by Theranos' lab directors indicating that the assay tests were validated. Most of the documents include a note disclosing that "obvious outliers" were excluded from calculations and it explains those outliers.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
5m

Wade pulled up Theranos' 21-page policy document and is walking through the "responsibilities" of lab operators and the company's policy for testing quality control daily, and gets Cheung to acknowledge that the QC tests weren't using human blood samples.

Dorothy Atkins@doratki·
36s

Wade wraps today's trial testimony by getting Cheung to acknowledge that Theranos had a procedure in place re. what to do if quality control tests fail: "You weren’t responsible for creating that procedure?" "No," she replies. "Do you know who was?" Wade asks. "No."
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 51 more.
Total: 1,369 (members: 52, guests: 1,317)

Online statistics

Members online
52
Guests online
1,317
Total visitors
1,369
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
591,787
Messages
17,958,879
Members
228,607
Latest member
wdavewong
Back
Top