Elizabeth Holmes expresses remorse in her criminal trial
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Biotechnology entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, a former billionaire accused of engineering a massive medical scam, expressed some remorse while on the witness stand Tuesday, but denied trying to conceal that her company's blood-testing methods weren't working as she had promised.
In her third day of testimony during the high-profile criminal trial, Holmes acknowledged making some mistakes as CEO of Theranos, a company she founded in 2003 when she was just 19. But she repeatedly emphasized that she made most of her decisions with the help of other executives and a respected board that included former cabinet members in various presidential administrations.
Holmes, now 37, also made it clear that she never stopped believing that Theranos would revolutionize health care with a technology that was supposed to be able to detect a wide range of diseases and other problems by testing just a few drops of blood, even when confronted with adversity.
“It is never smooth," Holmes testified. “There's always challenges."
Theranos eventually collapsed after a series of explosive articles i n The Wall Street Journal and an audit by federal regulators exposed serious and potentially dangerous flaws in the company's blood tests. The scandal wiped out Holmes' fortune, which was estimated at $4.5 billion in 2014 when she was the subject of a glowing cover story on Fortune magazine.
Holmes addressed several prickly areas that government prosecutors highlighted while presenting their case during the first 10 weeks of the trial. But she and her lawyers still haven't touched a hot-button issue they have suggested as a key defense: Whether Holmes was being secretly manipulated by her former lover and Theranos' former chief operating officer, Sunny Balwani, into...
