Holmes, according to the prosecutors’ July 31 response to Holmes’ July 30 motion, is adopting a strategy of other defendants indicted during the COVID-19 pandemic — to suggest without basis that was the grand jury that returned second and third superseding indictments against her was not selected at random from a fair cross-section of the community.
“Defendant Holmes is not entitled under the [Jury Selection and Service Act] to the majority of the materials she seeks because such materials are not necessary to allow her to assess whether to move to stay proceedings or dismiss the indictment. … Rather, the parties are entitled to inspect a limited set of data – namely, to the extent available, the county of residence, zip code, race, and age of the individuals listed in the master jury wheel from which the grand jury was selected — which is sufficient for defendant Holmes to determine whether, in her view, a motion to stay or dismiss is warranted,” the prosecutors said.
Holmes through her lawyers requested access to records regarding the constitution of the grand jury (or grand juries) that returned the second and third superseding indictments in this case, including materials related to the master grand jury wheels and jury list from which the grand jurors were selected.
Holmes’ lawyers said they intend to review the records and, depending on their contents, to hire an expert to compare the grand jury records with appropriate census data to determine whether the jury represented a fair cross-section of the community.
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.”
Due to the pandemic, the trial in federal court in San Jose, Calif., may not take place until 2021.
