As a Theranos insider and whistleblower, Tyler Schultz was able to provide information about the ongoing failures in medical laboratory testing at the once-high-flying Theranos to regulators and at least one journalist
What’s it like to be a whistleblower in a high-profile clinical laboratory? Few clinical laboratory workers will ever know. But former Theranos employee Tyler Shultz does know, after helping to expose the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup’s deceptions.
The 31-year-old Shultz reportedly celebrated the news of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ conviction on four charges of defrauding investors with champagne, joy, and a healthy dose of vindication, according to NPR.
“This story has been unfolding for pretty much my entire adult life,” Tyler Shultz (above), whistleblower in the Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial, told NPR from his parents’ home in Silicon Valley. “All of a sudden, it was just a weight was lifted. It’s over. I can’t believe it’s over,” he added. A former employee of now defunct clinical laboratory company Theranos, Shultz is CEO at Flux Biosciences, a company he co-founded. (Photo copyright: Deanne Fitzmaurice/NPR.)
Shultz Interns Briefly at Theranos
In 2011, Shultz was a biology major at Stanford University—where Elizabeth Holmes herself briefly attended—when his grandfather, former US Secretary of State George Shultz, a Theranos board member, introduced him to Holmes.
According to NPR, the younger Shultz was so impressed by the charismatic Holmes that he asked her if he could intern with Theranos after his junior year. Following his internship, he accepted a full-time position as a research engineer with Theranos, a stint that lasted only eight months. Shultz quit Theranos the day after he emailed Holmes in 2014 to alert her to failed quality-control checks and other troubling practices within the company’s clinical laboratory.
According a 2016 profile of Shultz in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), his email to Holmes resulted in a “blistering” reply from then-Theranos President and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who “belittled Shultz’s grasp of basic mathematics and his knowledge of laboratory science.”
Yet, Shultz told NPR, “It was clear that there was an open secret within Theranos that this technology simply didn’t exist.”
After leaving Theranos, Shultz became a key source for the WSJ’s 2015 exposé of Theranos. Using an alias, he also contacted state regulators in New York about the Theranos Edison blood-testing device’s shortcomings. In response, Theranos responded with threats of lawsuits and intimidation, the WSJ reported.
In an interview with CBS News, Shultz said, “I am happy that she was found guilty of these crimes and I feel like I got my vindication from that, and I feel good about that.”
Whistleblowers Were Critical to WSJ’s Investigation
Former WSJ reporter John Carreyrou, who authored the newspaper’s investigative series into Theranos, credits the Theranos whistleblowers for blowing the cover on the clinical lab company’s deceptions.
“I would not have been able to break this story without Rosendorff, Tyler, and Erika,” Carreyrou told NPR, referring to Shultz and two additional Theranos whistleblowers: one-time Theranos Laboratory Director Adam Rosendorff and laboratory associate Erika Cheung. “Tyler and Erika were corroborating sources, and that was absolutely critical.”
In the interview with CBS News, Tyler described the damage his role as a Theranos whistleblower caused to his relationship with his grandfather, former Secretary of State and Theranos board member George Shultz. Tyler said the elder Shultz did not believe his claims about Theranos’ regulatory deficiencies and the Edison device’s shortcomings until he neared the end of his life.
“That was extremely tough. This whole saga has taken a financial, emotional, and social toll on my relationships. The toll it took on my grandfather’s relationship was probably the worst. It is tough to explain. I had a few very honest conversations with him,” Shultz told CBS News.
While the elder Shultz never apologized to his grandson, Tyler said his grandfather ultimately acknowledged he was right.
“In one of my last conversations with him he told me a story about how he got Elizabeth invited during fleet week in San Francisco to go give a speech to United States Navy sailors. He said with tears in her eyes, she told the room about how she was so honored and humbled that her life’s work would be saving the lives of United States servicemen and women,” Shultz recalled in the CBS News interview.
“He said he could not believe that anybody could get in front of these men and women who are willing to put their lives in front of our country and lie directly to their face as convincingly as she lied,” he added.
George Shultz died in February 2021.
Jury’s Ruling on Defrauding Patients
In an interview with CNBC, Shultz said his one disappointment with the verdict was that Holmes was not found guilty of defrauding patients. Calling the patients “the real victims,” Shultz said, “I did what I did. I stuck my neck out to protect those patients, not to protect Betsy DeVos’ $100 million investment.” (The jury voted Holmes guilty on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit fraud against Theranos’ investors, but not guilty on conspiracy to defraud and commit wire fraud against Theranos patients.)
Tyler Shultz was listed as a potential witness in the Holmes trial but was not called to take the stand. He—along with many clinical laboratory directors and pathologists who have closely followed the Holmes trial—will now await news of Holmes’ sentencing. Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison for each guilty verdict, but she’s likely to receive a lighter sentence.
The trail of Ramesh Balwani is expected to begin sometime in March. That trial can be expected to produce additional revelations about the problems of Theranos and how and why management is alleged to have knowingly reported inaccurate clinical laboratory test results to thousands of patients.
Split verdict could still mean considerable prison time for the one-time high-flying Silicon Valley entrepreneur
In a trial generating unprecedented interest among clinical laboratory scientists, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty in federal court this week on four charges of defrauding investors.
Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count, though sentencing experts predict a much lighter sentence for the 37-year-old whose birth of her first child caused one of multiple delays in the start of the three-month-long trial.
“I suspect she may get five to seven years in prison,” Justin Paperny, Founder of federal prison consultancy White Collar Advice, told Fortune. However, Paperny said Holmes will be unlikely to be eligible for early release in federal prison beyond a 15% reduction in prison time for good behavior.
“There is no real mechanism to really aggressively advance your release date in federal prison,” Paperny told Fortune.
Holmes was acquitted on four counts, while the jury failed to reach a decision on three counts. Judge Edward J. Davila of the US District Court, Northern District of California, who presided over the trial, will sentence Holmes at a later date. Holmes is expected to be allowed to remain free on bail until sentencing.
The graphic above, taken from a CNBC live report, shows the jury’s verdicts in all 11 charges, including those on which the jury did not arrive at a verdict. (Photo copyright: CNBC.)
Trial Delays Due to Pandemic, Holmes’ Pregnancy
According to ABC News, Holmes “expressed no visible emotion as the verdicts were read.” She did not respond to questions about the verdict as she left the courtroom and walked to a nearby hotel where she has stayed during seven days of jury deliberations.
“The jurors in this 15-week trial navigated a complex case amid a pandemic and scheduling obstacle,” US Attorney of the Northern District of California, Stephanie Hinds, told reporters Monday evening, according to ABC News. “I thank the jurors for their thoughtful and determined service that ensured verdicts could be reached. The guilty verdicts in this case reflect Ms. Holmes’ culpability in this large-scale investor fraud, and she must now face sentencing for her crimes.”
The decision followed an often-delayed trial in which the prosecution put 29 witnesses on the stand, most of whom reinforced the government’s contention that Holmes defrauded investors and patients as she worked to bring to market Theranos’ “revolutionary” Edison finger-prick blood-testing device. The prosecution also presented emails, text messages, and other documents that it said were evidence of Holmes’ deceptions.
Dark Daily covered all of this in multiple ebriefings, including the potential that the four CLIA-laboratory directors who held the top laboratory position in Theranos’ lab during Holmes’ tenure as CEO might be held accountable for their actions or inactions on some level.
Details of Charges and Guilty Verdicts against Holmes
According to the Mercury News, the jury returned guilty verdicts on four counts facing Holmes:
Count 1: Guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Theranos investors. This charge accused Holmes and Chief Operating Officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, of “knowingly and intentionally” soliciting payments from investors with false statements about Theranos’ technology, its business partnerships, and its financial model.
Count 6: Guilty of wire fraud in connection with a 2014 investment of $38,336,632 made by PFM Health Sciences of San Francisco. Brian Grossman, PFM’s Chief Investment Officer, testified that his team was told Theranos had brought in more than $200 million in revenue, “mostly from the Department of Defense.” In realty, 2011 revenue came in at $518,000 and the company had no revenue in 2012 or 2013, according to Theranos’ former head of accounting.
Count 7: Guilty of wire fraud in connection with an October 2014 investment of $99,999,984 made by a firm associated with the family of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Managing Director, Global Private Equity at Ottawa Avenue Private Capital, Lisa Peterson testified Holmes claimed Theranos’ technology was in use “on military helicopters,” and sent a report with a Pfizer logo touting the “superior performance” and accuracy of Theranos’ machines. The logo and follow-up questioning, Peterson said, led her to conclude that the report was prepared by Pfizer, which was false.
Count 8: Guilty of wire fraud in connection with an October 2014 investment of $5,999,997 from a company involving Daniel Mosely, the long-time lawyer for former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Mosely testified he also was led to believe Pfizer had approved Theranos’ technology. In a letter to Kissinger, he called the report “the most extensive evidence supplied regarding the reliability of the Theranos technology and its applications.”
The illustration above shows Elizabeth Holmes being kissed on her head by her father after being found guilty in federal court on four charges of defrauding investors while CEO of now defunct blood-testing laboratory Theranos. (Graphic copyright: Vicki Behringer/ABC News.)
The jury of eight men and four women began deliberations on December 20 after closing arguments in the nearly four-month-long trial in San Jose, California. Holmes originally faced 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. One count was dropped during the trial.
During a blistering three-hour closing argument, Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Schenk hammered home the prosecution’s contention that Holmes choose to deceive investors and patients rather than admit failure in her quest to revolutionize healthcare by delivering a blood-testing device capable of running up to 200 laboratory tests using a finger-prick of blood.
“Ms. Holmes made the decision to defraud her investors, and then to defraud patients,” Schenk told jurors, according to CNBC. “She chose fraud over business failure. She chose to be dishonest with investors and with patients.”
The defense team put three witnesses on the stand, with Holmes emerging as a surprise witness in her own defense. She maintained she never intended to defraud anyone and instead relied on experts within her company for the claims she made about Theranos’ blood-testing device. During her seven days of testimony, she also alleged emotional, physical, and sexual abuse by Balwani. Balwani has denied in legal filings Holmes’ abuse allegations.
Holmes Wanted to “Change the World,” Defense Claims
In his closing argument, defense attorney Kevin Downey maintained Holmes’ intent was not to deceive but to “change the world.”
“At the end of the day, the question you’re really asking yourself is, ‘What was Ms. Holmes’ intent?'” Downey told jurors, according to Business Insider, “Was she trying to defraud people?”
The jury’s answer: “Yes.”
Clinical laboratory directors and pathologists will soon learn the price Holmes will pay for her deceptions when she is sentenced in coming weeks. Meanwhile, the start of Balwani’s fraud trial has been postponed to February 15, according to Bloomberg News.
Former CEO Elizabeth Holmes now awaits March 9 court date on federal fraud charges that include reporting false medical laboratory test results on some patients
Clinical laboratory leaders have watched with keen interest the federal criminal proceedings against disgraced Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes, whose blood-testing company lost nearly $1 billion of investors’ money before dissolving in 2018.
In a recent CNBC interview, John Carreyrou, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigative journalist who first broke the Theranos story in 2015, contended that the once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup could have paid back investors on a pro-rata basis, but that the company opted to use its dwindling cash to challenge lawsuits.
“If you rewind to October 2015, when I finished, when I published my first investigative story on Theranos, the company still had $400 million in the bank and it could have called it quits then,” Carreyrou said in the interview. “And Elizabeth Holmes could have apologized to investors, to patients, to everyone she had misled and returned that money to shareholders on a pro-rata basis.”
Theranos Scandal Breaks Wide Open
Carreyrou’s nearly year-long Wall Street Journal investigation into Theranos helped bring down the venture capital darling that had achieved a $9 billion private valuation before crumbling under the weight of fraud allegations. Dark Daily and our sister publication The Dark Report (TDR) covered in detail the allegations against and investigation into the embattled blood test company in dozens of e-briefings and TDR articles starting in 2015.
In fact, The Dark Report was first to publish the news that Theranos had ceased using its finger-stick collection method in Phoenix as early as April 2015. (See TDR, “Theranos: Many Questions, But Very Few Answers,” April 20, 2015.) At that time, Theranos declined to respond to The Dark Report’s requests for comments.
Theranos had built its superstar reputation on the backs of a revolutionary finger-prick blood testing system, which Holmes promised could diagnosis diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer with just a few drops of blood. But an in-depth investigation into hoopla surrounding the company’s breakthrough technology by Carreyrou and other reporters at the Wall Street Journal revealed it was based on false test results and phony claims to investors and companies, such as Walgreens, which had planned to feature the technology in their retail clinics.
Elizabeth Holmes (above), founder and former CEO of now defunct Theranos, was considered a wunderkind when, as a 19-year-old Stanford University dropout, she founded Theranos in 2003. Early on, she attracted high-profile members to the Theranos board, including former US Secretary of State George Schultz, and cultivated comparisons to legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs. But once the accuracy of Theranos’ capillary blood-test device fell under suspicion, Holmes’ fall from grace was swift, as clinical laboratories learned from multiple Dark Daily e-briefings and articles in The Dark Report going back to 2015. (Photo copyright: The New York Times.)
In 2016, Theranos received sanctions from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which included revocation of the company’s CLIA certificate and sanctions against Holmes and other company officials that prohibited them from owning or operating a medical laboratory for two years. Soon afterward, Theranos laid off 340 workers, closed its laboratory operations, and shuttered its wellness centers to “focus on an initiative to create miniature medical testing machines,” the New York Times reported.
When Theranos was finally dissolved in September 2018, Carreyrou reported that the company had an estimated $5 million in cash to distribute to unsecured creditors. All told, Carreyrou estimates Theranos’ investors, which included such big names as News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Bechtel Group Chairman Riley Bechtel, and US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, lost nearly $1 billion.
Today, Holmes is preparing to stand trial on a dozen federal wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges at the US District Court in San Jose, Calif., where jury selection is slated to start on March 9, 2021, amid COVID-19 pandemic safety precautions.
According to the Mercury News, Holmes faces maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine, plus possible restitution. Carreyrou does not expect Holmes to seek a plea deal.
“I think that the chances of that are pretty unlikely. From what I hear, she’s telling her friends and her entourage that she’s actually looking forward to her day in court and she thinks that the real story—her version of the story—will come out at trial,” he told CNBC. “And so, she’s actually putting on a cheerful face with people she knows, and people have seen her recently and are saying that she’s looking forward to see this go to a jury.”
While the final chapter of this story will be written by a federal court jury, clinical laboratory leaders likely will want Holmes to face maximum penalties if found guilty of all charges. The deceptive scientific and business practices Theranos allegedly engaged in caused many headaches for the clinical lab directors of hospitals and health networks as their CEOs asked why the “cheap and fast” Theranos testing system could not be used instead of traditional, more expensive testing methods.
Theranos also financially damaged investors who might otherwise have gained capital and continued to invest in more credible startups of diagnostic companies and clinical laboratories.
