Sunny Balwani verdict: Elizabeth Holmes’ ex-lover and Theranos partner convicted of fraud and conspiracy

A jury reached its verdict on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy against Balwani on Thursday

Former Theranos COO Ramesh Balwani appears in federal court for a status hearing on July 17, 2019 in San Jose, California (Getty Images)

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former lover and partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, has been found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges.

A jury reached a verdict on 12 counts against Balwani - two for conspiracy to defraud Theranos investors and 10 for wire fraud - on Thursday after nearly five days of deliberation in San Jose, California.

He now faces up to 20 years in prison.

The three months of testimony and evidence mirrored the case against Holmes in a separate trial last year. Holmes was convicted on four counts of defrauding investors and acquitted on four counts alleging she had also deceived patients who submitted to Theranos blood tests. She is free on $500,000 bail but faces a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years at her sentencing scheduled for September.

Lawyers for Balwani, 57, depicted him as a well-intentioned investor and entrepreneur who became Theranos’ chief operating officer in 2010 and then was swept into the scam by Holmes. She later dumped him as her lover and business partner in 2016 as Theranos began to unravel.

Before that fissure, Balwani put up $15m of his own money to help bolster Theranos when Holmes brought him on board as her top lieutenant while they were clandestinely living together. Balwani’s Theranos investment eventually became worth about $500m on paper -- a stake that his lawyers told jurors he never sold. It became worthless when the company collapsed.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, portrayed Balwani as a ruthless accomplice who helped Holmes swindle investors. At one point, they charged, Mr Balwani oversaw the Theranos lab that covered up serious flaws in a the company’s blood-testing technology that could have jeopardized the lives of patients.

The charges he was convicted of on Thursday included six counts for defrauding individual investors out of a combined more than $154m - as well as one count for defrauding investors as a whole and another for patients.

Holmes had sought to cast blame on Balwani when she testified at her trial, tearfully portraying him as domineering as well as emotionally and sexually abusive.

Balwani chose not to testify at his own trial.

The saga surrounding Theranos - which was shuttered in 2018 following a Wall Street Journal investigation which revealed it was marketing blood-testing technology that did not actually work - gained renewed attention this year with the release of the Hulu series “The Dropout” starring Amanda Seyfried and Naveen Andrews.

Associated Press contributed to this report