Elizabeth Holmes trial: Jury unable to reach unanimous verdict on three of 11 counts

Panel spent much of their holiday season behind closed doors in a California courthouse

The jury in the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has told the judge that they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three of the 11 counts.

A note from the jury read aloud in court on Monday morning revealed that the panel reviewing the fraud charges against Ms Holmes is stuck on three charges after deliberating for seven days following a trial lasting 15 weeks.

Federal prosecutors called 29 witnesses over the course of almost four months, laying out the mistakes Ms Holmes is alleged to have committed during her 15 years as the head of the blood-testing startup.

Ms Holmes founded the company at the age of 19 after dropping out of Stanford, pitching an idea based on new technology that was never realized. She claimed that her device would be able to run hundreds of tests on a patient’s health simply by taking a single drop of blood – a claim that never came true.

Ms Holmes quickly grew famous for her distinctive blonde hair, black turtlenecks, as well as her low voice. She was on the cover of major magazines and attracted noteworthy investors such as former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz.

Theranos was valued at more than $9bn at its peak, and Ms Holmes was at times compared to the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

After conferring with lawyers for the defence and prosecution, US District Judge Edward Davila sent for the jury in order to encourage it to deliberate further.

Once the jury returned to court, Judge Davila instructed its members to do their best to reach a verdict, noting that they should re-examine their own views and change their opinions if persuaded they are wrong. He also reminded them that charges must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jurors then returned to their deliberations.

The eight men and four women who will determine Ms Holmes’ fate spent much of their holiday season behind closed doors in a San Jose, California, courthouse, weighing reams of evidence presented during a three-month trial that captivated Silicon Valley.

When they were still unable to reach a verdict by the middle of last week, the jurors were given Thursday off before an already scheduled court holiday on Friday. They hadn’t provided any inkling where they stood in their deliberations last week after sending two notes to the federal judge presiding over the case the previous week.

No reason was given for pausing the deliberations earlier than expected last week. The jury so far has spent a total of roughly 40 hours across six days discussing the charges against Ms Holmes, who is facing up to 20 years in prison if she is found guilty.

Ms Holmes, 37, is facing 11 criminal charges alleging that she duped investors and patients by hailing her company’s blood-testing technology as a medical breakthrough when in fact it was prone to wild errors.

Before those problems were exposed in 2015 and 2016 by stories in The Wall Street Journal and a regulatory audit, Ms Holmes briefly realized her aspirations for fame and fortune while raising more than $900 million from a list of renowned investors that also included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, software mogul Larry Ellison and the Walton family behind Walmart.

At Theranos’ height, Ms Holmes had amassed a fortune of $4.5 billion on paper and was being lionized as a visionary.

The jury will now spend its seventh day trying to decide if she was a crook.

The Associated Press contributed to this report