A new surge of coronavirus cases in California led Judge Edward Davila to postpone jury selection to July 13, the San Jose Mercury News and CNBC reported. Davila previously postponed the trial to March 2021.
“The court recognizes that a continuance of the trial will cause great inconvenience to victims who would like their day in court, as well as (Holmes), who wishes a speedy opportunity to defend against the charges,” Judge Edward Davila wrote in an order issued Friday, the Mercury News reported. “These rights are important, but paramount to the court is the safety and health of the community.”
Potential government witnesses in next year’s trial could include former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who both served on Theranos’ board. Media titan Ruport Murdoch of News Corp. and The Wall Street Journal may testify about Theranos pressuring journalists not to publish negative news about the company.
Holmes and Theranos were once Silicon Valley darlings, with Holmes claiming that her company was set to revolutionize blood testing with technology that could analyze tiny amounts of blood. Forbes in 2015 even recognized Holmes as America’s richest self-made woman based on Theranos’ multibillion-dollar valuation at the time.
Investigative reporting, though, soon dismantled the claims Holmes was making about Theranos’ technology, raising questions about whether she and others had misled investors. The downward spiral culminated in the 2018 shutdown of the company, with the SEC criminally charging Holmes and former Theranos president Sunny Balwani over what it described as a “massive fraud.”
