In the process, she captured the attention of heads of state, top business leaders and wealthy families with idealistic plans to revolutionize the health care industry. It “shines a light on the importance of drawing a distinction between truth and optimistic projections - and keeping that clear in one’s mind,” she said. Holmes’s conviction sends a message to other founders and executives to be careful about their statements to investors and the public, said Jessica Roth, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law and former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. “The fear of losing should not deter them.”
Monaco, the deputy attorney general, recently said in a speech. “We will urge prosecutors to be bold,” Lisa O. Yet the Justice Department under President Biden has renewed its focus on white-collar crimes. Those downfalls captured the public’s attention, but did not result in criminal charges. In recent years, tales of start-up chicanery, from the bungled initial public offering of WeWork to the aggressive boundary-pushing tactics of Uber, have not slowed the flow of money toward charismatic founders spinning tales of business success.
Some have warned that more Theranos-like disasters loom. The verdict arrived in a frenzied period for the tech industry, with investors fighting to get into hot deals and often ignoring potential red flags about the companies they were putting money into. Judge Davila pushed them to continue deliberating, but they were unable to agree. On Monday, jurors told the court that they were deadlocked on three of the charges of defrauding investors. And Theranos, which dissolved in 2018, is likely to stand as a warning to other Silicon Valley start-ups that stretch the truth to score funding and business deals. Holmes would be the most notable female executive to serve time since Martha Stewart did in 2004 after lying to investigators about a stock sale. Few technology executives are charged with fraud and even fewer are convicted. Holmes’s “culpability in this large-scale investor fraud.” attorney, said in a statement that the guilty verdicts reflected Ms. “We collectively have been through many things.” “It’s been a long case,” Judge Davila told the jury. She went down the row of family and friends in the court gallery behind her, hugging each one before leaving through a side door. Then she gathered her belongings and whispered to her lawyer. Holmes - who had falsely claimed that Theranos’s blood tests could detect a variety of ailments with just a few drops of blood - sat motionless.