Elizabeth Holmes remained impassive as she learned in real time that a jury of eight men and four women had found her guilty of four charges of cheating investors.
After the jurors were released, Holmes walked along the line of her supporters in the San Jose courtroom, wearing a mask and appearing indifferent. She hugged everyone, starting with her partner Billy Evans, then her mother, father, and friends, placing an arm over their shoulder and holding a pen in her hand.
With that, Holmes, 37, embarked on the next chapter of her life as the first and only Silicon Valley entrepreneur to be tried for and convicted of fraud. Holmes, who was once regarded as the next Steve Jobs for her lofty promise of developing equipment that could screen for a wide range of illnesses with just a few drops of blood, now faces years in prison.
What’s next for Holmes and her high-profile court case, which lasted over four months?
There are three more counts to go.
One count of conspiracy to deceive investors, as well as three counts of wire fraud involving specific investors, were found guilty of Holmes.
However, the jury found Holmes not guilty of three additional charges of misleading patients and one count of conspiracy to deceive patients — a section of the government’s case that took far less time to build than the case against investors.
Three federal wire fraud counts involving other investors — each of whom had invested in Theranos in its early days and then again later, with their later investments constituting the counts in question — were not resolved by the jury.
In a filing Tuesday, the court said it had declared a mistrial for the three counts on which jurors couldn’t agree. The prosecution will then determine whether or not to retry Holmes on those crimes, which legal experts believe they will very certainly do given the guilty judgement on all four counts. Once that’s established, the focus will shift to Holmes’ punishment.
Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison for each count, which is expected to run concurrently, according to the indictment. That doesn’t imply she’ll get the maximum sentence, or even close to it. Referring to sentence guidelines, the judge will ultimately make the decision as he thinks fit.
