Ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has been forced to phone in her own defense in a civil fraud case unfolding in Arizona after her lawyers quit over non payment.
Holmes, who lives in California, made a call into a Phoenix federal court on Thursday to represent herself without an attorney.
The former executive told a judge in an audio feed into the proceeding that she also would not be handling her own arguments in her defense.
Instead, Holmes said she was going to defend herself by relying on arguments made by attorneys representing co-defendants in the civil suit, reports Bloomberg.
The former top executive of the now-imploded blood testing startup hasn’t taken the same approach in criminal proceedings relating to the collapse of Theranos that she’s facing in California.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and lawyer Kevin Downey leave a federal court after a status hearing in California in July. While she’s been appearing for her criminal case in San Jose, she’s been phoning in her defense in a separate case in Phoenix, Arizona
Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, speaks at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco. Holmes has been forced to phone in her own defense in a civil fraud case unfolding in Arizona after her lawyers quit over non payment
Despite being able to still wear pricey garbs to the San Jose criminal proceedings — she arrived just last week wearing an all-grey ensemble that consisted of a $495 Boss sleeveless dress with a $495 Boss jacket to match — her lack of legal representation in Phoenix raised questions about her finances.
Holmes’ net worth before Theranos went down was about $4.5 billion, Bloomberg reports.
One legal observer speculated that if she is running out of funds, Holmes may be prioritizing which court matters more to show up to in person.
‘If there’s only so much money to go around, staying out of prison is always priority number one, period,’ Bill Portanova, a former prosecutor who’s now a defense lawyer, but isn’t involved in any Theranos litigation, told Bloomberg.
‘Lawsuits seek only money, not imprisonment,’ he added.
Holmes, 35, a former Stanford University student, started Theranos in Palo Alto on the promise it had developed a way to perform complex blood analysis with a finger prick.
But federal authorities contend Theranos’ technology didn’t work as billed, and that the company had duped both its investors and clients. She, her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos president Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani face 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Holmes, who entered a not guilty plea in San Jose federal court to the charges of conspiracy and fraud, could spend up to 20 years in prison, and get slapped with a $250,000 fine if convicted.
In Phoenix, Holmes is answering to charges that stem from an October 2019 complaint alleging that she hadn’t paid her attorneys feels.
Court documents show Holmes owed John Dwyer and the lawyer’s firm, the Palo Alto-based Cooley, for a year’s worth of work on her behalf.
Court documents show Holmes owed John Dwyer and the lawyer’s firm, the Palo Alto-based Cooley, for a year’s worth of work on her behalf
Holmes’ net worth before Theranos went down was about $4.5 billion
The lawyers said at the time that they wanted to quit the case because they don’t ever expect to be paid. The documents cited Holmes ‘current financial situation’.
‘Given Ms. Holmes’s current financial situation Cooley has no expectation that Ms. Holmes will ever pay it for its services as her counsel,’ they added.
The lawyers were representing Holmes in a separate class-action civil lawsuit filed in US District Court in Phoenix.
A trial date hasn’t been set for the civil lawsuit filed against Holmes, Theranos and Walgreens, the firm’s retail partner which offered Theranos’ blood-testing technology in Arizona and California.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of consumers who paid for Theranos’ blood testing service. Holmes’ is scheduled to appear in court on February 10 at 10am for a pretrial motions hearing.
Dwyer did not immediately respond when DailyMail.com reached out.
Lawyers on his criminal defense team at Williams & Connolly, based in Washington, DC, also were not immediately available.
Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor now teaching at University of Michigan’s law school, said the retainer for a top law firm to handle Holmes’ criminal case likely required a high-priced down payment.
‘It’s possible that she paid Williams & Connolly a large retainer up front that its lawyers are now ‘earning,’ McQuade said in an email to Bloomberg.
The California case against her claims Theranos, Holmes and Balwani and a one-time partner, the Wallgreens drug store chain, took samples of their blood when the defendants allegedly knew the technology was still under development.
That, prosecutors say, left clients at risk of potentially harmful treatments, or not to seek help when they needed it for medical ailments.
A Walgreens spokesman did not immediately respond when DailyMail.com reached out.