Elizabeth Holmes trial: lawyer accuses incompetent lab chief, not Holmes, of blaming | New

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An attorney for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes claimed in her criminal trial on Tuesday that the incompetence of the company’s former lab director Adam Rosendorff was at the root of his testing startup’s problems. Blood of Palo Alto, California.

To the extent that lab failures are the result of the incompetence of someone other than my client, it is exculpatory for my client, Holmes’ attorney Lance Wade said at a hearing. without the presence of the jury.

Rosendorff has been on the witness stand for five days so far in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Where Holmes, sitting upright throughout the proceedings, surrounded by two prominent Washington lawyers, makes facing 12 felony charges.

The former lab director, who denounced what he said he saw at Theranos to the Wall Street Journal, said the company cared more about public relations and fundraising than patients, and that he had resigned due to serious testing issues. accuracy of results.

Holmes’ attorney Lance Wade on Tuesday described problems at other companies where Rosendorff worked after leaving Theranos in November 2014, about a year and a half after joining the company.

Wade sought to link Rosendorff to the new test of 50,000 patients at the biotech company where Rosendorff landed after Theranos, which he said was the result of unreliable test results. Dr Rosendorff left the company immediately after the results were disclosed, Wade told Judge Edward Davila.

Wade also drew a line between Rosendorff and the federal indictments of two executives at fecal testing startup uBiome from Silicon Valley, where Rosendorff also worked and where, according to Wade, he was fired for not showing up. Wade also alleged that at the current workplace of Rosendorff, Massachusetts-based health technology company PerkinElmer, federal inspectors issued a notice of serious deficiencies in Rosendorffs’ lab and work.

He pointed the finger at a lot of other people, including my client, Wade said. It seems he hardly ever did his job competently. He was also incompetent at Theranos, and that is the reason why so many failures have occurred. This is the person ultimately responsible for the laboratory.

Holmes, a Stanford University dropout who founded Theranos in 2003, is accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and of misleading patients and doctors by falsely claiming that the machines of his company could perform a full range of tests using just a few drops of blood. with a fingertip. She pleaded not guilty.

Federal prosecutor John Bostic argued to Davila that Holmes ‘legal team should not be able to put Rosendorffs’ work at other companies to the jury. What the defense is trying to do here is introduce unrelated conduct, Bostic said. This is not a proper use of this kind of evidence.

The company that retested 50,000 patients out of caution reported that only two in 15 people had been affected, Bostic said. The way Mr. Wade called that 50,000 inaccurate results is incorrect, Bostic said.

Rosendorffs’ work at uBiome had nothing to do with the allegations in the indictments of company executives, and it is not clear whether he was fired from the startup, Bostic said. He added that Rosendorff’s work in his current job obviously has nothing to do with Theranos’ lab.

Bostic called Wades and claimed there was no connection between Rosendorff’s testimony and a federal investigation into the other company.

Davila did not immediately rule on Wades ‘offer to introduce Rosendorffs’ work after his employment with Theranos in his cross-examination.

Rosendorff, a tall man with gray hair and black rimmed glasses, spoke again on Tuesday after the hearing. As his testimony began, Wade convinced Rosendorff that his testimony about frequent problematic test results at Theranos differed from what he had said in pre-trial testimony.

Quoting this deposition, Wade noted that Rosendorff then said that I don’t think I had a greater number of abnormal tests that I had to review as a laboratory director at Theranos than at other places I have. have been.

That’s 180 degrees from what you answered in your direct testimony, isn’t it? said Wade.

Yes, it seems to be different, Rosendorff admitted, but added that his work before Theranos was done in a higher volume lab.

Holmes, whose mother Noel and her partner Billy Evans, the father of her newborn, were sitting in the courtroom gallery as they often do during the trial, face up to 20 years in prison if she is found guilty. His trial, which began on September 8, is expected to last at least early December.

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