Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Clinton Donor & Obama Entrepreneurship Ambassador Charged With Massive Fraud









Elizabeth Holmes — the Silicon Valley wunderkind whose blood-testing startup Theranos has collapsed in a slew of scandals — has been charged with “massive fraud” by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC on Wednesday accused Theranos CEO Holmes and a top lieutenant of defrauding investors of more than $700 million through false claims about its technology.

Holmes — a Steve Jobs wannabe who dressed exclusively in black turtlenecks as she talked up her blood-testing unicorn, which at one point boasted a valuation north of $9 billion — settled with the regulators for $500,000 while neither admitting nor denying the accusations....

The disgraced CEO also misled employees about its institutional backing, according to the charges. Theranos distributed pitch books to investors containing articles purportedly written by other pharmaceutical executives — lending the startup institutional clout —but were in fact written by company employees, according to the charges....

The SEC claims that Holmes misled investors about her technology, which Theranos said was able to test for diseases with only a pinprick, and more cheaply than what was commercially available, according to the SEC settlement.

In reality, the company didn’t have any reliable technology to test blood samples, and sent blood to third-party companies for testing, according to the complaint....









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