Jury In Elizabeth Holmes Trial Reportedly Deadlocked On 3 Counts, As Judge Urges: “Keep Deliberating”

It looks as though the Elizabeth Holmes saga is nowhere close to over, and certainly not short of suspense. 

Today in a note to the judge overseeing the Holmes trial, jurors said that they had been unable to reach a unanimous verdict on 3 of the 11 counts against Holmes, the WSJ reported.

The judge has reportedly encouraged the jury to work through their stalemate, advising the jury they can take as much time as they’d like, according to Bloomberg headlines mid-day Monday. The judge also reportedly asked jurors to “re-examine their own views” while lawyers for both sides have been “arguing” over what the next step for the trial should be:

*HOLMES JUDGE WILL ASK JURY TO KEEP DELIBERATING ON 3 COUNTS

*HOLMES JUDGE READS TO JURY INSTRUCTIONS AGREED ON BY LAWYERS

*HOLMES LAWYER, PROSECUTORS ARGUING OVER NEXT STEP FOR JURY

*HOLMES JUDGE READS TO JURY INSTRUCTIONS AGREED ON BY LAWYERS

*HOLMES JUDGE ENCOURAGES 12-PERSON JURY TO WORK THROUGH IMPASSE

*HOLMES JUDGE ADVISES JURORS: `RE-EXAMINE YOUR OWN VIEWS’ 

*ELIZABETH HOLMES JUDGE CAUTIONS JURORS: `THERE IS NO HURRY’ 

Closing arguments were made in Holmes’ criminal trial in late December and the jury received its final instruction from the presiding judge before beginning deliberations during the last week of December.

The jury deciding her fate consists of eight men and four women. They are tasked with trying to decide whether or not Holmes is guilty of both fraud and conspiracy charges that were leveled against her in 2018.

If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison. 

As we have noted in previous writeups, Holmes’ defense has been that her company failed and she made a series of business mistakes. Prosecutors portrayed Holmes as “exaggerating the capabilities and reliability of Theranos testing machines she pitched as revolutionary,” Bloomberg reported.

Throughout the trial, jurors heard from lab partners, former employees and patients. 

Holmes also took the stand in her own defense for seven days. She spent her time “deflecting blame”, “failing to remember” things and “accepting responsibility” for some mistakes, the report says.

The defense claimed that Holmes never intended to deceive anyone.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk said during closing arguments that she “made the decision to defraud her investors and then to defraud patients.” 

“She chose fraud over business failure,” Schenk continued.

Holmes’ attorneys have claimed there is a “fundamental disconnect” between allegations of intentionally deceiving investors and making honest mistakes. 

“She believed she was building a technology that would change the world,” Holmes’ attorney, Kevin Downey, said. He claimed Holmes “sacrificed her youth, friends and family relationships,” to make Theranos work. “She stayed. Why? Because she believed in this technology,” Downey told the jury. “She stayed the whole time. She went down with this ship.”

 

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