Sunny Balwani leaving court in January 2019.Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The trial of former Theranos executiveRamesh “Sunny” Balwaniis scheduled to begin Tuesday — little more than two months after a federal juryconvictedhis ex-girlfriend, Theranos founderElizabeth Holmes, of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Balwani’s trial was previously set to commence on March 16 in California, before U.S. District Judge Edward Davila. However, a COVID-19 scare last week delayed the start of the proceedings inside San Jose’s Robert F. Peckham Federal Building.
Balwani, a 56-year-old Pakistani businessman, has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Picking the jury of six men and six women for the trial proved more difficult than expected, as many in the jury pool admitted to having seen parts ofThe Dropout, Hulu’s new miniseries starringAmanda Seyfriedas Holmes andNaveen Andrewsas Balwani.
Theranos was once valued at about $9 billion, and Holmes was named one ofForbes' richest women in America— all with the help of Balwani, authorities have alleged.
But in March 2018, Holmes' elaborate ruse unraveled.
In June 2018, criminal charges were filed against Holmes and Balwani, who, for a time, served as Theranos' president.
Balwani, who first joined Theranos in 2009, has been banned from owning or operating a blood laboratory ever since an inspection of Theranos' Newark, Calif., lab back in March 2016. Balwani left the biotech company that same year in May.
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Like Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University in 2004, Balwani also left Stanford without the computer science degree he’d been pursuing in 2008.
The producers have yet to announce who will be playing Balwani in the film.
source: people.com
