Reporter recalls pivotal story in Elizabeth Holmes' stardom

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The Fortune Magazine reporter whose cover story helped turn Elizabeth Holmes into a Silicon Valley sensation testified Thursday as to how he ended up feeling like a pawn in the entrepreneur's promotion of what she called a revolutionary blood-testing technology.

Roger Parloff's appearance on the witness stand marked a pivotal moment in Holmes' 10-week-old criminal fraud trial. Federal prosecutors are preparing to wrap up their case, which has aimed to prove that Holmes defrauded sophisticated investors, retailers and patients while she was CEO of Theranos, a startup she founded in 2003 when she was just 19.

After the prosecutors rest their case, Holmes' lawyers will get their turn to argue that while Holmes made mistakes in pursuit of her audacious ambitions, she never committed any crimes.

Holmes, now 37, may take the stand in her defense; she faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years if the jury convicts her. She has already suffered a startling downfall since the June 2014 publication of Parloff's story on the cover of Fortune magazine.

Bearing the headline, “This CEO Is Out For Blood,” the article propelled fundraising efforts that at one point valued Holmes' fortune at $4.5 billion — just a few years before Theranos' scandalous collapse in 2018.

Parloff testified that he began working on the story in April 2014 shortly after being approached a representative for David Boies, a prominent lawyer who worked for Holmes and became a member of Theranos' board of directors.

The jurors have already heard and seen evidence that Holmes used Parloff’s article to cast herself as a visionary in the mold of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Holmes repeatedly promised her breakthrough would come through a blood-testing device called the Edison, which she...