Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of Theranos, arrives for movement listening to on Monday, Nov. 4, 2019, on the U.S. District Court docket Home inside Robert F. Peckham Federal Constructing in San Jose, California.
Yichuan Cao | NurPhoto | Getty Photos
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, whose legal fraud trial was scheduled to start out in July, is asking for a delay as a result of she’s pregnant.
In a court docket submitting on Friday, her protection attorneys and prosecutors requested Choose Edward Davila to delay the beginning of her trial by six weeks to start on August 31, 2021.
“On March 2, 2021, counsel for Defendant suggested the federal government that Defendant is pregnant, with an anticipated due date in July 2021,” prosecutors and attorneys for Holmes write. “Each events agree that, in gentle of this growth, it isn’t possible to start the trial on July 13, 2021.”
No different particulars had been instantly accessible.
The trial has already been delayed thrice as a result of Covid-19 pandemic.
Holmes’ authorized crew was ready to lift the problem of psychological well being as a part of her protection technique. In an earlier court docket submitting, Holmes’ attorneys wrote they intend to introduce proof “regarding a psychological illness or defect or every other psychological situation of the defendant bearing on.. the problem of guilt.”
This would come with skilled testimony from Dr. Mindy Mechanic, a scientific psychology professor at California State College Fullerton, who in response to the College’s web site “focuses on the psychosocial penalties of violence, trauma and victimization with an emphasis on violence in opposition to girls and different types of interpersonal violence.”
The decide granted federal prosecutors the power to conduct their very own examination of Holmes’ psychological well being and be examined by two specialists, a psychologist and psychiatrist.
Holmes and her former COO Sunny Balwani are every dealing with a dozen legal wire fraud expenses and 20 years in jail for falsely claiming Theranos expertise might run dozens of blood assessments with only a drop or two of blood.
The Silicon Valley start-up was as soon as valued at $9 billion earlier than shutting down in 2018.