By Staff Writer
Following the guilty verdict in the Elizabeth Holmes trial early this year, her former partner and Theranos COO Sunny Balwani now stands trial for his role in defrauding investors.
Scott Budman of NBC Bay Area returned to the San Jose courthouse this week to continue coverage of the latest developments in the Theranos saga.
According to Budman, the prosecution in the second Theranos case today tried to link Sunny Balwani to Elizabeth Holmes, when it comes to a key decision to mislead investors into believing that Theranos had a working relationship with pharma-giant Pfizer, and to put faulty blood testing machines into Walgreens stores.
Aron Solomon, chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital joined Budman to weigh in on Balwani’s role in the case: “Sunny Balwani was operationally the lead in that Walgreen’s relationship, which is exactly the link the prosecution needs to show.”
Budman continued, “One of the points stressed by the prosecution in the earlier case against Holmes is that she fraudulently used the Pfizer logo while promoting Theranos blood testing machines, one of the ways investors were convinced to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the company. Now they want jurors to believe Balwani was also part of that decision.”
Solomon added, “The idea that Balwani was pushing things that had the Pfizer logo without Pfizer’s permission, again, that was him doing fraudulent operational things on behalf of Theranos.”
Watch the full report below.
A Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, Aron Solomon, JD, is the Chief Strategy Officer for AMPLIFY. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. Aron has been featured in Newsweek, The Hill, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, Venture Beat, The Independent, Fortune China, Abogados, Today’s Esquire, Yahoo!, ABA Journal, Law.com, The Boston Globe, and many other leading publications across the globe.
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