Ajit Karn
New York: According to a media report, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former chief operating officer of Theranos, a failed US-based blood-testing startup, has lost his bid to remain free while he appeals his conviction on fraud charges that prosecutors said endangered patient health and defrauded the company’s investors of millions of dollars.
According to News Agency on Thursday that a federal judge denied Balwani’s request to remain free pending the outcome of his appeal to a higher court in a 17-page ruling.
Mid-February, US District Judge Edward Davila held a nearly two-hour hearing on Balwani’s motion, but postponed judgement until six days before the convicted individual must report to prison.
Balwani, 57, was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in federal prison in California in December 2017 for fraud that endangered patient health by misrepresenting the accuracy of Theranos’ blood analysis technology and defrauded the blood-testing company’s investors of millions of dollars.
In addition to the 155-month prison term, District Judge Davila ordered Balwani to serve three years of post-release supervision. Balwani was commanded to report to prison on March 15, 2023, to commence serving his sentence.
In an order issued late Thursday, District Judge Davila stated that although Balwani “is not likely to flee or pose” a threat to the community, “the most essential requirement for remaining free while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviews the case has not been fulfilled,” according to the report.
The report added that the convict failed to demonstrate a “substantial” error that would “likely result in a reversal or new trial.”
From September 2009 to July 2016, Balwani worked at the Palo Alto-based blood-testing company founded in 2003 by his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Holmes, who was once hailed as the rising star of Silicon Valley.
US Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in a statement at the time of the trial that Balwani and Holmes claimed Theranos developed a “revolutionary blood analyzer” that could run any blood test run by conventional labs using only a small blood sample drawn via a fingerstick rather than the traditional draw from a vein.
The duo asserted that the Theranos proprietary analyzer produced results that were cheaper, more reliable, and less variable than those produced by existing methods, as well as results that were obtained more quickly than ever before.
However, evidence from the trial from the previous year revealed that Balwani and Holmes were aware that the analyzer performed only a few rudimentary tests and was slower than existing devices. According to the claim, the duo repeatedly used conventional machinery to acquire blood test results that the Theranos analyzer was intended to perform.
They misled investors and the general public into believing that Theranos conducted all of its experiments with its analyzer alone.
At the height of the fraud, Balwani owned nearly 30 million shares of Theranos, which were worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to evidence presented at trial.
Davila sentenced Holmes to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison and ordered her to surrender on April 27, 2023 to begin serving her sentence.
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In June 2018, federal criminal allegations were initially lodged against Balwani and Holmes. In July of 2020, a federal grand jury returned an amended indictment charging both defendants with two counts of wire fraud conspiracy and ten counts of wire fraud. In July of this year, a federal jury found Balwani guilty on all counts following a four-month trial.
Balwani was prosecuted separately from Holmes, and Holmes was not convicted on all counts during her prosecution.
Balwani was reportedly born in Pakistan, but his family migrated to India. During the 1980s, he migrated from India to the United States and attended the University of Texas. PTI YAS GRS GRS
