SAN JOSE — Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ seven days on the witness stand in her criminal fraud trial ended Wednesday — and with that, abruptly and surprisingly, her 10-lawyer defense team rested its case.
In her long hours on the stand, Holmes took the jury on a rollercoaster ride that saw her smiling and confidently answering questions before tearfully alleging that her former lover and Theranos chief operating officer Sunny Balwani abused and controlled her. In response to many questions about events central to the case, she said she could not recall. She admitted mistakes. She expressed faith in her technology.
At the end, she flatly denied defrauding investors and patients and suggested that the allegedly false claims she made about what her technology could do were based not on its capabilities at the time, but on what she believed it could do in the future. When her lawyers announced Wednesday that they would call no one else, Holmes — who some experts once doubted would testify at all — became the key witness in her own trial.
The dramatic conclusion to proceedings that have captured the attention of Silicon Valley and the nation means defense attorneys will not call another highly anticipated witness — Dr. Mindy Mechanic, a psychologist specializing in relationship violence who has analyzed Holmes. Her lawyers appear to have concluded they did enough to raise reasonable doubt among jurors about whether Holmes committed fraud, said Bay Area legal analyst and...
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