Elizabeth Holmes To Stand Trial On Fraud Charges

Lawyers are scheduled on Tuesday to begin selecting a jury for the trial to decide the fate of Silicon Valley’s most lambasted entrepreneurs, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

Yahoo- Holmes, 37, once proclaimed the youngest female self-made billionaire — and featured in Yahoo Finance’s new original documentary “Valley of Hype,” available to stream at 5 p.m. on Monday — faces charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to more than $700 million in investments she attracted for her now defunct blood-testing company, Theranos.

Plaintiffs lawyer Reed Kathrein, who was interviewed in “Valley of Hype” and represented two of the company’s late stage investors, said Theranos’ sizable capital raise could be used in her defense to send a message to the jury that big investments from wealthy, seasoned backers amounted to business as usual.

“They will get witnesses to admit this is a known way of doing business in Silicon Valley, and therefore claim that it could not possibly be fraud,” Kathrein said. “This will be fun to watch as it would put all of Silicon Valley on trial.”

At its peak, the diagnostics firm was valued at approximately $9 billion and headquartered on the prestigious Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, California. Holmes’ unfulfilled vision for the company was to revolutionize health care using a desktop analyzer that could perform hundreds of medical diagnostic tests using as little as a drop of blood.