Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes accused of fraud by SEC, pays it off

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/14/theranos-founder-elizabeth-hol.html

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So the lesson for all you CEOs out there is that crime does pay after all.

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Still, that’s a slap on the wrist for all the bilking of billions and unsettled medical markets. Especially when you consider some folks do 10 years in prison for shoplifting. Then of course, she’s white… there’s that.

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Her eyes are totally hypno-toading me…

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What a bad joke: the company, the punishment and the CEO. If only there was a good punch line to make it humorous.

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Well, Forbes said some time ago that her net worth was zero. I wonder what Theranos is going to do as a company now that they don’t have any magic technology. It seems their only hope, the minilab, is not exactly disrupting anything that their competitors already offer.

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https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2Fqwny3dRsI8bW8%2Fgiphy.gif&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fgiphy.com%2Fgifs%2Fthe-jungle-book-mowgli-kaa-qwny3dRsI8bW8&docid=1NMjW6TejiLcdM&tbnid=hgmdO0xeVewDgM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjSnMzVsezZAhUO21MKHZjqAJQQMwg2KAAwAA..i&w=540&h=283&client=firefox-b-ab&bih=915&biw=1280&q=trust%20in%20me%20gif&ved=0ahUKEwjSnMzVsezZAhUO21MKHZjqAJQQMwg2KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

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I quite forgot about this tale when that other story about a totally legitimate medical diagnostic tool of incredible power came up a while ago.

Well, good. It shouldn’t be able to.

But it should prosecute people in the courts, and seek criminal penalties that way.

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I think @fuzzyfungus and @SteveT hit upon it in an earlier discussion, suggesting that the company, or at the very least those at the top, are in fact vampires.

The turtleneck hides the puncture wounds.

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Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/sec-says-former-equifax-executive-engaged-in-insider-trading

I’m a bit weary of the Forbes article that says she was worth zero. With that much money coming in, most investors are happy to let the leadership take a bit of money off the table so upper management is less time-sensitive for an exit than if all of their eggs were in company stock. How much she’s going to get pinched by her defrauded investors is a different question, but just because Theranos is worth zero doesn’t fully answer the question of her own net worth.

That said, if truly broke, the prohibition from serving on a public boards is not a small thing as it substantially constrains her earning power.

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The one on the right looks like Elon Musk’s sister.

.

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In 2015, Forbes named Holmes as the youngest self-made female billionaire

Damn shame.

Was Thiel an investor?

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To be fair, when you google image her, there aren’t any other pictures where the white of her eyes is visible above and below her irises. This pic was most likely carefully chosen so as not to have to be Beschizza’d, since it came with its own built-in craze factor.

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Says the Post:

The SEC also alleges that Holmes claimed to investors that Theranos technology was being used by the Department of Defense on the battlefield in Afghanistan and on medevac helicopters… That technology was never deployed in the battlefield by the Department of Defense, even though Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who then led the U.S. Central Command, personally pushed for it. Regulatory officials in the military had flagged problems with Theranos’ approach.Mattis later joined Theranos’ board — which he resigned to become Defense Secretary.

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But this is a publicity still CHOSEN BY HER. The crazy eyes (at least partly a reflection from the ring light used to light her) are INTENTIONAL.

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Prison is for the 99%.

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To that end, it’s worth noting that the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco has an ongoing criminal investigation. This just settles the SEC’s end of things.

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