From ABC News, Jan. 23:
Elizabeth Holmes has pleaded not guilty to wire fraud charges.
It was the summer of 2017 and Elizabeth Holmes, once the youngest female self-made billionaire, was sitting across from 12 attorneys as the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated whether she helped orchestrate an "elaborate, years-long fraud."
The testimony, obtained by ABC News "Nightline," has never been broadcast until now.
"Did it concern you that a number of tests weren't working on Theranos' devices?" an SEC attorney asked Holmes.
"I know that we made mistakes," Holmes replied.
Holmes has since settled with the SEC, with no admission of wrongdoing, but is now facing up to 20 years in prison, awaiting a criminal trial for charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She has pleaded not guilty.
Her story is a stunning fall from grace for the woman who was once poised to change the world. Her technology had promised to run hundreds of lab tests from just a drop or two of blood.
It was a promise she would never fulfill.
"Not only did they fool the investors, they fooled patients, they fooled doctors." Reed Kathrein, a partner at Hagens Berman who sued Theranos on behalf of investors, told ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis for "Nightline."
In 2003, Holmes launched a company which she would come to name Theranos, a combination of the words "therapy" and "diagnostics." She officially dropped out of Stanford University during her second year of college to pursue her business full time.
She wanted to create a portable device that could process any blood test with just a drop or two of blood from the finger. The ability do to a large number of laboratory tests from a small amount of blood would revolutionize health care.
"If you think about a newborn, for example in the hospital, who is having blood drawn repeatedly, certainly that newborn doesn't have a lot of blood to give... if you could get things from the amount of blood that you'd get from a finger stick, that would be something that would clearly advance the game," said Dr. Stephen Master, a pathologist who interviewed Holmes on stage in 2016 at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s Annual Scientific Meeting....MUCH MORE
