Elizabeth Holmes — the founder of blood testing startup Theranos and the poster child for misleading investors, media, and innocent people looking for medical care through a web of deceit — wants a do-over. She is requesting a new trial, according to a document filed Tuesday in the Southern District Court of California.
The motion for a new trial, authored by Holmes’ attorneys, hinges on “newly discovered evidence,” specifically: the alleged testimony regrets of Adam Rosendorff.
Rosendorff was a lab director at Theranos and later, testified as a key witness in the case against Holmes and her ex-boyfriend/partner in crime Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. His original testimony lasted multiple days and emphasised the pressure that Theranos employees were under to demonstrate the faulty diagnostic technology worked, even when it didn’t.
“I felt that it was a question on my integrity as a physician not to remain there and to continue to bolster results I essentially didn’t have faith in,” Rosendorff said while on the witness stand in 2021, according to CNBC. “I came to understand that management was not sincere in diverting resources to solve issues.”
Now, Holmes and her lawyers are claiming that Rosendorff left a voicemail and then showed up at Holmes’ residence on August 8 in a desperate bid to communicate that he “felt he had done something wrong, apparently in connection with Ms. Holmes’ trial.” The motion, supposedly paraphrasing Rosendorff, says that the former Theranos employee stated, “the government made things seem worse than they were.”
In the document, Holmes’ legal team wrote, “Under any interpretation of his statements, the statements warrant a new trial under Rule 33. But, at a minimum, and to the extent the Court has any doubt about whether a new trial is required, the Court should order an evidentiary hearing and permit Ms. Holmes to subpoena Dr. Rosendorff to testify about his concerns.”
The new trial request comes eight months after Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud and related charges, and just a couple of months after Balwani was found guilty on 12 counts of fraud. Initially, Holmes’ sentencing was scheduled for September 26, but was recently delayed until October 17.
Prior to the motion for a new trial, Holmes’ legal team attempted to appeal the guilty verdicts, in an expected procedural long-shot bid. However, a judge upheld the original conviction on September 1.
You can read the full document requesting a new trial here: