Issues arose after a pathologist who once was the clinical laboratory director at Theranos suggested his testimony during the trial was misconstrued by federal prosecutors
Just when clinical laboratory directors and pathology group managers thought they could look forward to a world without an ongoing Theranos fraud trial, company founder and ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes requested a new trial. Her request was based on comments by pathologist and former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, MD, that he was remorseful about his testimony in Holmes’ fraud trial.
Now, it appears the court will hear Holmes’ argument. On October 4, a federal judge agreed to delay Holmes’ sentencing to consider new evidence that was submitted to the court in a September filing and further evaluate her request for a new trial.
In that filing, Holmes claimed that Rosendorff visited her home on August 8 to express regret over his testimony. According to Holmes, Rosendorff alleged that his statements had been misconstrued by prosecutors at her trial. He stated that “he tried to answer the questions honestly, but that the prosecutors tried to make everyone look bad” and he now feels like “he had done something wrong,” The Guardian reported.
Theranos founder and ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes (left) as she was seen entering the federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif., on Sept. 1 to argue that her trail verdict should be overturned due to new comments from pathologist and former lab director Adam Rosendorff, PhD, who expressed remorse over his original testimony. Clinical laboratory managers may want to track these new developments in the unfolding saga of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. (Photo copyright: AP/Daily Mail.)
Pathologist Rosendorff’s Testimony about Holmes
Rosendorff, the pathologist who served as the CLIA laboratory director at Theranos for several years, was a major witness for the prosecution in the Holmes trial which lasted nearly four months. During his four-day testimony, he contended that Holmes was cognizant of accuracy issues with Theranos’ blood-testing device and that she intentionally misled both investors and patients.
In January, a jury found Holmes guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for lying to investors about Theranos products. The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for more than 50 hours over seven days to arrive at the verdict. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.
In September, US District Judge Edward Davila, who presided over Holmes’ original fraud trial, declined to overturn the guilty verdict.
The new hearing regarding the issues with Rosendorff’s testimony will occur on October 17, the original date of Holmes’ sentencing. Davila stated that he has scheduled an entire day for hearing, but that he expects it to take less than the full allotted day.
Judge Wants to Know If Former Theranos Lab Director Told the Truth
If her request for a new trial is denied, Holmes will be sentenced sometime between November and January. She is currently free on bail while awaiting her sentencing.
Regarding the latest development, Davila stated that it was unusual for a witness to appear at a convicted defendant’s home. “I will say I haven’t seen a case where this happened before,” Davila told CNN.
“What the court wants to know is, Dr. Rosendorff, do you feel the government manipulated you in the preparation or in any way in regards to your testimony?” Davila said about what will be covered in the October 17 hearing. “What I want to know is, did you tell the truth?”
After Holmes used Rosendorff’s appearance at her home to request a new trial, the former Theranos lab director filed a sworn declaration with the court on September 21 that he stands by his testimony “in every respect.”
“Nevertheless, I feel compassion for Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani, and even more so for the members of their families who were not responsible for their conduct but will be affected by the punishment they may receive,” he wrote.
And so, the saga of Elizabeth Holmes continues. Clinical laboratories will once again get a view into how a lab director’s responsibilities can alter testing outcomes—and fraud trials.
Federal judge must rule on her bid for a new trial, after former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff’s statement that he regrets his testimony during her criminal fraud trial
It is a rare event for a board-certified clinical pathologist to be named in national news headlines, but that is what is happening now to Adam Rosendorff, MD, who served as the CLIA laboratory director at Theranos for several years.
Rosendorff is once more the subject of news headlines because of his recent statements expressing “regret” about his testimony for the prosecution during the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, founder and ex-CEO of now defunct Theranos. This development caused attorneys for Holmes to file a motion for a new trial.
In August, Rosendorff showed up at the residence of Elizabeth Holmes and made statements to her attorneys that are the basis for the motion to conduct a new trial.
In a recent court filing requesting the new trial, Holmes’ attorneys described Rosendorff as a “star witness” for the prosecution and pointed out, “The government mentioned him more than any other government witness in both opening and closing statements, and Dr. Rosendorff testified longer than any other government witness.”
During four days of testimony last October, Rosendorff emerged as a central prosecution witness. On the stand, he supported prosecutors’ contention that Holmes knew about the accuracy issues with Theranos’ Edison blood-testing device and intentionally mislead investors and patients.
In court testimony, Adam Rosendorff, MD (above) said, “I had frequent conversations with Elizabeth about concerns that I had in the laboratory,” and [that] she was often copied on emails discussing issues, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. As clinical laboratory leaders who closely followed his testimony know, Rosendorff was Theranos’ laboratory director from April 2013 to November 2014. (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
Rosendorff Attempts to Meet with Holmes
The “Dr. Rosendorff’s Encounter at Ms. Holmes’ Home” section of the 17-page filing states Rosendorff appeared at the home of Holmes and her partner William Evans on August 8 after leaving a voicemail earlier in the evening asking for a meeting with Holmes. Rosendorff allegedly had two short conversations with Evans, who told him Holmes could not speak to anyone and asked Rosendorff to leave. Rosendorff was described by Evans as speaking in a “trembling” voice and appearing to be “in distress.”
The filing goes on to state Rosendorff told Evans “that he wanted to speak to Ms. Holmes because it would be ‘healing for both himself and Elizabeth to talk.’ He stated that ‘when he was called as a witness, he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everyone look bad’ and that ‘the government made things sound worse than they were when he was up on the stand during his testimony.’”
The filing continues: “Dr. Rosendorff stated that ‘Theranos was early in his and [Ms. Holmes’] career,’ that ‘everyone was just doing the best they could,’ and ‘everyone was working so hard to do something good and meaningful.’”
The section concludes, “He stated that ‘he fe[lt] guilty’ and that he ‘felt like he had done something wrong,’ apparently in connection with his testimony in Ms. Holmes’ case. He stated that these issues were ‘weighing on him’ and that “he was having trouble sleeping.’”
Rosendorff’s Regrets Unlikely to Trigger New Trial
In the filing, Holmes’ attorneys wrote, “under any interpretation of his statements, the statements warrant a new trial under Rule 33. But, at a minimum … the Court should order an evidentiary hearing and permit Ms. Holmes to subpoena Dr. Rosendorff to testify about his concerns.”
Bloomberg, however, quoted criminal defense attorney Michael Weinstein, JD, Chair of Cole Schotz P.C.’s White-Collar Litigations and Government Investigations Practice, as saying Rosendorff’s misgivings about his testimony are unlikely to warrant a new trial.
“A witness having second thoughts and how they were generally perceived is not new in criminal trials but often don’t lead to new trials or much of anything,” Weinstein told Bloomberg. “The burden for that is simply too high.” Weinstein was not involved in the Holmes case.
CBS News reached out to Rosendorff via LinkedIn, who responded he had no comment, adding, “Do not contact me.”
Nevertheless, Holmes’ lawyers have proposed an October 3 hearing to discuss why they believe a new trial is merited. Their request for a new trial came less than a week after U.S. District Judge Edward Davila rejected the defense team’s bid to have Holmes’ January convictions thrown out, the Mercury News reported.
“The evidence does support the jury’s findings,” Davila said at a September 1 hearing in San Jose, California, in which he issued a preliminary ruling denying her bid to have the verdict thrown out.
Theranos Saga Continues
At the hearing, Holmes’ lawyer Amy Mason Saharia, JD, told Davila the defense team would make another attempt to overturn the jury’s findings based on “new evidence,” the Mercury News stated. That new evidence appears to be Rosendorff’s admission that he has regrets about his testimony in the case.
Holmes, 38, is currently free on bail, but faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution on each of four counts. She will be sentenced on October 17. The court originally set her sentencing date for September 26, but agreed to delay her sentencing without giving a reason for the delay, CBS News reported.
Will former Theranos laboratory director Adam Rosendorff, MD’s, regrets alter the court’s previous decisions? Who knows? Many clinical laboratory directors and medical laboratory scientists followed Elizabeth Holmes’ nearly four-month long fraud trial with rapt interest. They will now have to wait a few more weeks to find out if the disgraced Theranos executive will get a new trial or a prison sentence.
Jury also heard testimony about Holmes’ claims that the Edison device was doing clinical laboratory testing for the military in overseas theaters
During the seventh week of ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal fraud trial, headline-making testimony continued nearly non-stop. A former Theranos product manager took the stand offering damning testimony that tied Holmes to questionable product demonstrations and exaggerated claims about the military’s use of the Edison blood-testing device. And a Pfizer scientist testified to alleged improper use of the Pfizer logo by Theranos in a report that went to Walgreen executives.
Those claims contributed to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charging Holmes in 2018 with fraud and stripping her of control of Theranos, the SEC stated in a news release.
CNN reported that former Senior Product Manager Daniel Edlin, who worked at Theranos from 2011-2016, acknowledged in court that the Edison device had never been used in a war zone or installed on a medivac helicopter. He also noted that Holmes had final say over his communications with the DOD.
According to CNN, “Edlin said he worked directly with Holmes to support the relationships with the military and Defense Department. He said, ‘the end goal’ for these discussions ‘was to start a research program that would compare Theranos’ testing to the testing available to the military at that time.”
Edlin testified that Holmes was ‘highly involved’ with these communications, CNN reported.
“I’d say any substantive communication I had with the military, I either discussed with her ahead of time … or email drafts were reviewed and approved before I sent them back out,” he testified.
Elizabeth Holmes, ex-CEO of now-defunct blood-testing company Theranos, is seen above leaving a San Jose, Calif., courthouse following a hearing. Holmes faces 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly misleading investors, clinical laboratories, patients, and healthcare providers about Theranos’ proprietary blood-testing Edison technology. Holmes has pleaded not guilty. (Photo copyright: Reuters.)
During cross examination, Edlin walked back some of his damaging testimony. When asked by defense attorney Kevin Downey, JD, of Williams and Connelly, LLP, if he or anyone else at Theranos was intentionally trying to deceive investors or other visitors during the demonstrations, Edlin responded, “Of course not,” according to Palo Alto Online.
To counter the prosecution’s claims that Theranos’ Edison machines were unsuitable for military use because they could not operate in high temperatures, Downey introduced an email from an Army doctor at the US Command in Africa praising the Edison after examining it in high temperatures. The doctor also, according to court documents, proposed the Army provide more funding to test the Edison’s capabilities, Palo Alto Online reported.
Nevertheless, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the Edison was never sent to a US military laboratory in Afghanistan for study, nor was it used in Africa to run blood tests.
Former Pfizer Scientist Testifies to Misuse of Intellectual Property
In another broadside to the Holmes defense, former Pfizer scientist Shane Weber, PhD, testified Holmes used the Pfizer logo in investor materials without the company’s permission in order to pass off as credible a study aimed at validating the Edison device.
The WSJ reported Weber told jurors that in 2008 he had reviewed a 15-page Theranos study involving cancer patients, but that he had stated in his own internal report to Pfizer at that time that nine conclusions in the study—including a statement that the “Theranos system performed with superior performance”—were “not believable.” Pfizer eventually heeded Weber’s advice to not enter into a partnership with Theranos.
Prosecutors stated that as part of Theranos’ negotiations with Walgreens, which ultimately invested $140 million in the blood-testing company, Holmes had placed a Pfizer logo on the top of each page of the cancer study report before sending it to Walgreens executives, claiming it was an independent due-diligence report on Theranos technology.
Weber told jurors that he had not known about the altered report until he was shown the document by prosecutors. He stated the logo was added without Pfizer’s permission, the WSJ reported.
Unfortunately for Walgreens, the retail pharmacy chain entered into a business agreement with Theranos without extensively examining or testing the Edison device, which Theranos had claimed could quickly and accurately run 200 diagnostic tests using a finger-stick of blood. Instead, the company relied on the opinions of its own staff healthcare experts and outside experts, none of whom fully tested the technology either, the WSJ stated.
Testimony in the Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial is expected to continue through December. Therefore, clinical laboratory managers and pathologists should expect headline-making news to continue as well. Dark Daily will continue its coverage as the trial moves forward.
WSJ reporter affirms that the pathologist was his “first and most important source” in confirming the problems at the now-defunct medical lab testing company
During the federal fraud trial of Theranos Founder and former-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, no one has spent more days on the witness stand than ex-Theranos Laboratory Director Adam Rosendorff, MD, the pathologist who testified for the prosecution that he repeatedly warned Holmes about problems with Theranos’ flawed Edison blood-testing device.
Dark Daily’s previous ebrief on the ongoing Holmes’ fraud trial reported that Rosendorff, who is board certified in clinical pathology, had testified, “I told her that the potassium was unreliable, the sodium was unreliable, the glucose was unreliable, [and] explained why. She was very nervous. She was not her usual composed self. She was trembling a bit, her knee was tapping, her voice was breaking up. She was clearly upset.”
It should come as no surprise that in response Holmes’ lawyers attempted to paint Rosendorff as an “incompetent” lab director with a resume littered with failures at other biotech companies. According to court documents, Holmes faces 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly misleading investors, clinical laboratories, patients, and healthcare providers about Theranos’ proprietary blood-testing technology.
But the many clinical laboratory professionals closely watching the Holmes trial will be equally interested to learn that outside of the courtroom former Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter John Carreyrou confirmed on Twitter that Rosendorff was the main source for his 2015 investigative reporting—which first called into question Theranos’ claim that it could run more than 200 blood tests using a finger-prick of blood—as well as for his subsequent book, “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.”
Carreyrou Declares Ex-Theranos Lab Director Adam Rosendorff a Hero
“So, I’ve been fielding queries from reporters asking me to confirm that former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, who is currently testifying at Elizabeth Holmes’ trial, was my source. I can now confirm it. Alan Beam = Adam Rosendorff,” Carreyrou tweeted.
“I’ll add this: Adam was my first and most important source. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to break the Theranos story. Hats off to his courage and integrity. He’s one of the real heroes of this story,” Carreyrou added in a subsequent Tweet.
Inside the San Jose, Calif., courtroom, pathologist Rosendorff took centerstage, completing six days on the witness stand as Holmes’ defense attorney Lance Wade, JD, sought to undermine Rosendorff’s earlier testimony for the prosecution and question his competence as a laboratory leader.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou (above) has revealed via Twitter that ex-Theranos laboratory director Adam Rosendorff, MD, was the “first and most important source” for his 2015 investigative reporting on Theranos. “Hats off to his courage and integrity,” Carreyrou tweeted. “He’s one of the real heroes of this story,” (Photo copyright: Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau.)
Rosendorff Testifies About Another CMS Investigation at Lab Where He is Medical Director
Rosendorff acknowledged during cross examination that he risked losing his license as a lab director after the CMS inspectors uncovered testing deficiencies at PerkinElmer’s Valencia (California) Branch Laboratory as well, where Rosendorff currently serves as Laboratory and Medical Director.
According to the WSJ, Rosendorff testified that most of the CMS inspection involved reviewing documents. During cross examination, it was revealed that the same CMS inspectors who investigated Theranos also conducted the PerkinElmer lab investigation.
Defense attorneys also had hoped to question Rosendorff about his previous work at uBiome Inc., a startup that was the target of a 2019 federal probe into its lab test billing practices, CNBC reported.
The Mercury News reported that during an October 5 hearing to determine the extent to which Holmes’ legal team could cross examine Rosendorff about his past employment, Wade told US District Judge Edward Davila that Rosendorff had a failed record as a lab leader. The Holmes defense lawyer alleged a link between “unreliable test results” at the biotechnology company Rosendorff went to after leaving Theranos and claimed that Rosendorff’s work at PerkinElmer resulted in the CMS notice of “serious deficiencies” at the lab.
“[Rosendorff] pointed the finger at many other people, including my client,” Wade told Davila. “He appears to almost never have competently done his job. He was incompetent at Theranos, too, and that is the reason many of the failures happened. He’s the person who’s ultimately responsible in the laboratory,” he added.
Nevertheless, Judge Davila prohibited questions regarding Rosendorff’s employment at uBiome and limited the scope of questions about his current role at PerkinElmer.
The graphic above depicts Holmes’ defense attorney Lance Wade, JD, cross examining former Theranos CLIA laboratory director Adam Rosendorff, MD. During his testimony, Rosendorff claimed he warned Holmes about the unreliability of Theranos’ Edison blood-testing device. Pathologists and clinical laboratory leaders will recall that Walgreens had contracted with Theranos to place testing devices in its in-store pharmacies. (Graphic copyright: The Wall Street Journal/Vicki Behringer.)
Holmes’ Attorneys Challenge Rosendorff’s Testimony During Cross Examination
After leaving Theranos, Rosendorff’s LinkedIn profile shows he served as Laboratory Director at San Francisco-based Invitae from December 2014 to September 2017 before moving to Millennium Health in San Diego as Medical Director from December 2017 to January 2021. He joined PerkinElmer in January.
The WSJ reported that Rosendorff’s ties to uBiome showed up in Theranos court records.
The WSJ also noted that during the multiday cross examination of Rosendorff, the Holmes defense team scored points by “pointing to contradictions in his testimony and challenging his assertions that he wanted to expose Theranos’ testing practices to the government.”
In making his point, Wade read aloud from a deposition Rosendorff gave during a separate case in which he claimed that Theranos did not have a greater number of anomalous test results than other labs where he had previously worked.
“And that’s 180 degrees from what you answered in your direct testimony,” Wade said to Rosendorff during cross examination.
“Yes, it seems to be different,” Rosendorff replied, but also noted that Theranos should have fewer errors than a lab with a much higher volume of tests.
Wade also introduced a November 2014 email in which Rosendorff told a colleague he knew of only one time when Theranos provided to a patient an obviously incorrect test result. Rosendorff had previously testified that he alerted Holmes on numerous occasions about his concerns with ongoing testing errors.
Wade also questioned whether Rosendorff had a financial motive for considering a whistleblower lawsuit against Theranos, pointing out that Rosendorff would be entitled to a portion of any damages recovered. Rosendorff responded that he did not have a profit motive in mind when he forwarded more than 150 Theranos emails to his personal account.
Former WSJ Reporter Carreyrou May Be Called to Testify
Clinical laboratory managers and pathologists will be fascinated with another twist that surfaced as this trial continued. Former WSJ reporter Carreyrou became personally intertwined with the Holmes’ trial after it came to light that the investigative reporter—whose podcast “Bad Blood: The Final Chapter” spotlights the ongoing fraud trial—is on Holmes’ potential witness list.
The motion, The Mercury News reported, states that “Placing Carreyrou on the witness list was done in bad faith and was designed to harass him,” and calls his placement on the list “a cynical ruse” that violates Carreyrou’s First Amendment rights.
CNN reported that Carreyrou’s attorneys are asking that the exclusion order (which prevents some witnesses from being inside the courtroom during other witness testimonies) or the gag order (which allows witnesses to discuss their testimonies only with their attorneys) not be applied to Carreyrou.
For clinical laboratory scientists awaiting the next installment in the now six-week-old trial, former Safeway CEO Steven Burd (now founder and CEO of Burd Health) will continue his testimony on the failed partnership between the grocery store chain and Theranos.
The Theranos agreement with Safeway is not as well-known as the Theranos-Walgreens deal. This was another news story written by Carreyrou and published by the WSJ on Nov. 10, 2015, titled, “Safeway, Theranos Split after $350 Million Deal Fizzles.”
As part of that agreement, Safeway spent $350 million to remodel 800 of its grocery stores to have a patient service center (PCS) and laboratory space where the unproven Edison device would be used to perform the clinical laboratory tests.
The testimony in this next phase of trial about the Safeway agreement with Theranos, and Holmes’ role in convincing the Safeway executive team to invest a third of a billion dollars to build 800 PSCs and lab spaces in 800 stores, should be as interesting as the witness testimony given earlier in this trial.
Four-star general Jim Mattis testified that he eventually “didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore,” The Wall Street Journal reported
Former-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was known for her obsession with Steve Jobs, imitating not only the late Apple CEO’s well-known management style, but also his wardrobe choices. However, clinical laboratory managers and pathologists will not be surprised to learn that—in testimony during Holmes’ federal fraud trial—Theranos’ former laboratory director told jurors Holmes’ “confident demeanor” disappeared when she was told her revolutionary blood-testing technology “didn’t work,” KPIX5 TV reported.
During two days of testimony in San Jose, Calif., pathologist Adam Rosendorff, MD, told jurors that in the days leading up to the 2013 launch of the Edison blood-testing device he warned Holmes in emails and in person that the product wasn’t ready to be deployed commercially.
“I told her that the potassium was unreliable, the sodium was unreliable, the glucose was unreliable, [and] explained why,” testified the clinical pathologist. “She was very nervous. She was not her usual composed self. She was trembling a bit, her knee was tapping, her voice was breaking up. She was clearly upset,” he added.
KPIX5 TV reported that Holmes had told Rosendorff the laboratory could substitute conventional federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved devices as needed.
Rosendorff left his position with Theranos in November 2014. According to KPIX5, he told jurors, “I felt pressured to vouch for [medical laboratory] tests that I did not have confidence in. I came to believe that the company believed more about PR and fundraising than about patient care. The platform was not allowing me to function effectively as a lab director.”
Former Theranos Laboratory Director Adam Rosendorff, MD (above), testified in the federal fraud trial of Theranos founder and ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes that he considered filing a whistleblower lawsuit against his employer because of his concerns about the Edison blood-testing device’s lack of reliability and accuracy of test results. “I wanted to get the word out about what was happening at Theranos,” the clinical pathologist told jurors, the Wall Street Journal reported. (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
In continuing testimony, Rosendorff acknowledged that tension increased between himself and Holmes and Theranos’ Chief Operating Officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani over Rosendorff’s concerns about the reliability and accuracy of the lab’s test results. At one point, he asked Balwani in an email if his name could be removed from the Theranos CLIA lab license so he would not be legally responsible for the lab’s problems.
Balwani’s own fraud trial begins in January 2022.
Former Theranos Lab Director Considered Filing a Qui Tam Lawsuit
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Rosendorff testified he forwarded work emails to his personal email account to protect himself in case the federal government investigated Theranos. He also considered filing a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.
“I wanted to get the word out about what was happening at Theranos,” he testified, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The government’s first witnesses were former Theranos employees:
Gangakehedkar testified that Holmes knew about reliability issues with the Edison blood-testing device, yet pressured staff to move forward with the Walgreens roll out.
Theranos’ partnership with Walgreens ended in 2016, after Theranos voided years of test results performed on its machines.
In “Former Theranos Chemist Says Elizabeth Holmes Was Aware of Testing Failures,” the WSJ reported that Gangakhedkar resigned from Theranos in September 2013, taking with her Theranos documents and copies of emails in which she expressed her concerns to Holmes and others about continuing problems with Theranos’ lab tests.
“I was scared that things would not go well,” Gangakhedkar testified, her voice breaking at one point. “I was afraid I would be blamed.”
As foreshadowed during the trial’s opening statements, Holmes’ defense team plans to argue that their client did not intend to defraud investors but believed her blood-testing technology—portrayed as capable of running more than 200 tests using a finger-stick sample of blood—would revolutionize the healthcare industry.
In his opening remarks to the jury, Lance Wade, JD, a member of the Holmes defense team from Williams and Connolly LLP, told jurors that evidence will show Theranos investors were “incredibly sophisticated and knew the risks” and were actually pushing to invest in Theranos. The reality of the case, he said, is “far more human and real, and oftentimes, I hate to say it, technical and complicated and boring” than what the federal government has suggested, Forbes reported.
Four-star General Jim Mattis (ret.) Testifies
According to the Wall Street Journal, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis testified he joined the Theranos board in the summer of 2013, at which time he invested $85,000 in the company. He said he had first met Holmes in San Francisco in 2011. At the time, Mattis, a Marine Corps four-star general, was leading the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) and that, according to testimony, he recognized the Edison device’s potential for use on the battlefield.
Mattis testified he and other Theranos board members were surprised to learn in 2015 that Theranos was using blooding testing equipment from competing companies.
“There came a time when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore,” he told jurors, according to the WSJ. Mattis resigned from the board in 2016, after learning he would be nominated as Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration.
The courtroom sketch above shows former Defense Secretary four-star general Jim Mattis testifying Wednesday at the criminal trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in San Jose, Calif. (Graphic copyright: Vicki Behringer.)
The trial is expected to last until mid-December, with jurors hearing testimony on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For clinical laboratory scientists, each day of testimony should bring a new round of surprises so stay tuned.
