<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1670453882948,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-2d9c-d084-a3ff-2ffce5bc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1670453882948,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-2d9c-d084-a3ff-2ffce5bc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_70453875", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1188940"} }); ","_id":"00000184-ede1-d2c9-a9e6-fff9560f0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedFormer Theranos Chief Operating Officer and investor Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was sentenced to 155 months, almost 13 years, in prison after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in July.
The sentencing took place in San Jose, California, under U.S. District Judge Edward Davila — the same judge who sentenced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to 11.25 years in prison less than three weeks ago.
Balwani’s sentencing marks the end to the Theranos deception saga that began almost five years ago in 2018, when Holmes and Ramesh were charged in March and indicted in June of that year on their crimes.
Holmes was convicted in January 2022 of conning investors, business partners, and countless patients into believing her now-defunct company had invented a better way to test drops of blood. She had falsely claimed it had the technology to scan for hundreds of health problems using a finger prick.
She was sentenced on Nov. 18 and will report to prison on April 27 to serve her sentence. She then will serve three years of supervised probation.
ELIZABETH HOLMES SENTENCED TO OVER A DECADE IN PRISON FOR THERANOS DECEPTION
Balwani was convicted in July 2022 on 12 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy for defrauding investors and patients about the company. He has denied all of the charges.
Ramesh Balwani
His attorneys had asked for home confinement of four to 10 months. During the sentencing, they made a last-ditch effort to place the blame solely on Holmes, per NBC reporter Scott Budman.
“Decisions were made by Elizabeth Holmes,” Stephen Cazares, Balwani’s defense attorney, said. “The position that investors lost everything and Mr. Balwani should be on the hook is wrong. … One of those investors is Mr. Balwani.”
Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in prison, while probation reports requested nine years.
Holmes and Balwani were romantically linked, a point brought up during Holmes’s conviction and sentencing. Text messages between the two shown during her sentencing show Holmes sending love-filled texts, while Balwani provided more businesslike and often cold responses.
https://twitter.com/scottbudman/status/1600580890383376384
Balwani’s lawyers said he invested $5 million in a stake in Theranos, worth about $500 million on paper, per NBC Bay Area. His wealth unraveled in 2015 after it was revealed that Holmes’s blood-testing technology did not work.
“Mr. Balwani is not the same as Elizabeth Holmes,” his lawyers had written in a memo to the judge. ”He actually invested millions of dollars of his own money; he never sought fame or recognition; and he has a long history of quietly giving to those less fortunate.”
They had argued that Holmes was “dramatically more culpable” for the fraud than Balwani and that he had already suffered adequately due to the media coverage of the Theranos fraud, losing “his career, his reputation and his ability to meaningfully work again.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
On the other side, prosecutors labeled Balwani as a power-hungry accomplice, stating he knowingly presented a fake story about Theranos’s technology “day after day.”
“Balwani maintained this facade of accomplishments, after making the calculated decision that honesty would destroy Theranos,” prosecutors wrote in their memo to Davila.
