Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and the company’s president and chief operating officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, exchanged declarations of love while concealing their romance from most employees and investors. Messages from November 21, 2013, later introduced at her fraud trial, include Balwani’s “Love” and Holmes’s reply, “More love.” In a later message dated that day, Balwani wrote, “U should make urself comfortable with financial models.”
In a separate exchange, Balwani wrote, “I prayed from the bottom of my heart for you.” Holmes’s response was “my nirvana,” accompanied by a smiley face.
Discussing clinical and call-center problems in another exchange, Balwani described his hopes for Theranos once those issues were resolved: “then let’s build the true American empire. A monopoly. Our obligation to the USA.”
Holmes answered, “That’s what we’re doing.” She’d founded Theranos in 2003; Balwani became its president and chief operating officer in 2009.
The company promised that a sample of only a few drops of blood would be enough for hundreds of tests, something its technology couldn’t achieve. Theranos collapsed in 2018.
Prosecutors drew on the texts to show how the pair were connected as partners and as executives. When prosecutor Robert Leach questioned Holmes during cross-examination, she acknowledged that many of the 12,000 admitted texts contained affection from both of them.
Holmes’s defense argued that messages showed Balwani exercising control over her. In her 2021 testimony, she accused him of emotional, psychological and sexual abuse, allegations he denied.
Balwani went through security at federal court in San Jose, California, on March 16, 2022, as his own trial began.
Holmes’s jury returned its verdict on January 3, 2022. It found her guilty of 4 offenses involving investors: 1 conspiracy charge and 3 wire-fraud charges.
The patient-related charges ended in acquittals: 1 conspiracy count and 3 individual fraud counts. Jurors couldn’t agree on the remaining 3 investor-fraud counts.
Balwani’s separate trial ended in guilty verdicts on all 12 charges, covering fraud involving patients as well as investors.
Holmes’s attempt to overturn her fraud conviction brought her to federal court in San Jose on September 1, 2022.
Both were sentenced to prison. Holmes’s original sentence, imposed by Judge Edward J. Davila on November 18, 2022, was 135 months, or 11 years and 3 months, in federal prison.
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