theranos trial
Bulletins

Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of defrauding Theranos investors

The jury decided that the Theranos founder was guilty of cheating investors, but not patients.

Elizabeth Holmes
Elizabeth Holmes said she believed in Theranos' potential.
Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

After more than four months in court, a jury of eight men and four women found Elizabeth Holmes guilty on four counts for defrauding investors, but not guilty on four counts related to defrauding patients.

The founder and former CEO of Theranos was found guilty on three counts of investor fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud investors. However, the jury acquitted Holmes when it came to four counts related to defrauding two patients or conspiring to commit fraud against patients.

The jury was also unable to reach a verdict on three counts related to investor fraud. It had informed the court earlier on Monday that it was unable to reach an unanimous verdict on those counts. After being instructed to deliberate further, the jury said it remained deadlocked on the three counts. Judge Edward Davila declared a mistrial on the three counts, and the DOJ said it will tell the court at a status conference next week about how it wants to proceed.

The jury found Holmes guilty of defrauding PFM's Brian Grossman, the DeVos family, and attorney Dan Mosley, but was unable to reach a consensus when it came to other investors like Alan Eisenman, Black Diamond's Chris Lucas and Hall Group's Bryan Tolbert.

The jury acquitted Holmes on all of the patient-related charges, including conspiracy to defraud patients and wire fraud for buying over $1 million in ads in Arizona for its services. One of the patient-related charges was for Erin Tompkins, who had received faulty HIV test results, and another was for a patient who had received incorrect prostate cancer results. Holmes was found not guilty on both counts.

Theranos whistleblower Tyler Schultz tweeted a few hours after the verdict, saying that he's "happy that justice has been served and that this saga is finally in my rearview mirror."


A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled yet, but Holmes could face 20 years in prison for each guilty charge.

Update: This story was updated Jan. 4 to include Tyler Schultz's Twitter statement.

Biz Carson

Biz Carson ( @bizcarson) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol, covering Silicon Valley with a focus on startups and venture capital. Previously, she reported for Forbes and was co-editor of Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Before that, she worked for Business Insider, Gigaom, and Wired and started her career as a newspaper designer for Gannett.

elizabeth holmestheranos trialtheranos
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