California
Elizabeth Holmes fails to overturn her Theranos fraud conviction
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos, will remain in prison after losing a bid Monday to overturn her fraud conviction, with a federal appeals court saying she hadn’t proved there were legal missteps during her trial for defrauding investors with false claims of what her blood-testing startup could achieve.
The three-judge panel in San Francisco also upheld the fraud conviction of Holmes’ former business partner and lover Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — as well as a lower’s court order for the two to pay $452 million in restitution.
Holmes was CEO throughout Theranos’ turbulent 15-year history, claimed her startup had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked, and the claims were false.
A 41-year-old mother of two small children, Holmes began serving her 11-year sentence in May 2023 at a federal prison in Texas. Her listed release date at the Federal Bureau of Prisons is currently March 19, 2032.
Balwani, 59, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison in California for his role in the scam and is set to be released in 2033.
The pair alleged in their appeal that legal errors were committed during their separate trials in 2022 when the court allowed some testimony, including that of a former Theranos employee, and improperly prohibited other testimony.
Judge Jacqueline Nguyen rejected the claims, writing in the 54-page ruling that they failed to prove any violations or major errors by the lower court.
Attorneys for Holmes and Balwani did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment by The Associated Press.
Holmes saw a meteoric rise in Silicon Valley that landed her on the covers of business magazines that hailed her as the next Steve Jobs and raised nearly $1 billion in investments from software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family behind Walmart, and many others.
While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son, Alexander submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.”
The deception came to light in 2015 after a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal and a regulatory audit of Theranos uncovered potentially dangerous flaws in the company’s technology, leading to its eventual collapse.
One of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals, the pair’s blood-testing hoax has been dissected in a book, an HBO documentary and an award-winning TV series.
Washington
Supreme Court throws out inmate’s murder conviction and death sentence
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him.
The justices found that Glossip’s trial violated his constitutional rights because prosecutors did not turn over evidence that might have bolstered his defense.
“Glossip is entitled to a new trial,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for five justices.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, voting to uphold the conviction and death sentence, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett would have allowed a state appeals court to decide how to proceed.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the case, presumably because he participated in it at an earlier stage when he was an appeals court judge.
The justices heard arguments in October in a case that produced a rare alliance in which lawyers for Glossip and the state argued that the high court should overturn Glossip’s conviction and death sentence because he did not get a fair trial.
The victim’s relatives had told the high court that they want to see Glossip executed.
Oklahoma’s top criminal appeals court had repeatedly upheld the conviction and sentence, even after the state sided with Glossip.
Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.
Glossip has always maintained his innocence. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing Van Treese and beating him to death with a baseball bat but testified he only did so after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.
In 2023, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, said new evidence persuaded him that Glossip’s trial was not fair. Drummond has said he does not believe Glossip is innocent and has suggested he could face a new trial.
If Glossip were to be tried again, the death penalty would be off the table, Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna, a Democrat, has said.
Among Drummond’s concerns are that prosecutors knew Sneed lied on the witness stand about his psychiatric condition and his reason for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium.
Drummond also has cited a box of evidence in the case that was destroyed, including motel receipts, a shower curtain and masking tape that Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, said could have potentially proven Glossip’s innocence.
At least five justices voted last year to block efforts to execute Glossip while his case played out.
That was just the latest reprieve for a death row inmate who has eaten three “last meals” and been married twice while awaiting execution. Oklahoma has set execution dates nine times for Glossip.
The court faced two legal issues, whether Glossip’s rights were violated because the evidence wasn’t turned over and whether the Oklahoma court decision upholding the conviction and sentence, reached after the state’s position changed, should be allowed to stand.
The justices issued their most recent order blocking Glossip’s execution last year. They previously stopped his execution in 2015, then ruled against him by a 5-4 vote in upholding Oklahoma’s lethal-injection process. Glossip avoided execution then only because of a mix-up in the drugs that were to be used.
Glossip was initially convicted in 1998 but won a new trial ordered by a state appeals court. He was convicted again in 2004.
Tennessee
Suspect in dozens of rapes gets 95 years for child sex abuse images and escape convictions
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man accused in lawsuits of drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women received a 95-year prison sentence Monday for other types of offenses: the production of child sex abuse images and an escape from an inmate transport van.
Judge J. Ronnie Greer in Greeneville called Sean Williams an unrepentant “organized, methodical sexual predator of women and children,” according to the Johnson City Press. Prosecutors said Williams, who was already in prison, had razor blades in his shoes on his way to court.
Williams, 53, congratulated a prosecutor for a “dramatic performance” during Monday’s hearing in federal court and implied the images were faked or doctored. Williams laughed, shook his head and retorted when the judge said the only thing worse he could imagine would be being a serial killer.
Earlier this month, Johnson City officials voted to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by women under “Jane Doe” pseudonyms against the city and individual police officers that claimed police deliberately botched investigations over sexual assault allegations against Williams from 2018 to 2021.
Williams has not yet been criminally charged as a result of the women’s allegations in the lawsuits.
The city and the officers have long denied corruption allegations, including a claim in the women’s lawsuit that Williams paid police to obstruct investigations into sexual assault allegations against him. The settlement broadly includes up to 400 women, including minors, who lodged any report of sexual abuse or trafficking to Johnson City Police from 2018 through December 2022, due to accusations of gender discrimination. The settlement still requires court approval.
A campus police officer at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, found Williams asleep in his car in 2023 while he was fleeing a federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge in April 2021.
His vehicle contained cocaine, methamphetamine, about $100,000 and digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse. Williams was also in possession of photos and videos showing him sexually assaulting at least 52 women at his Johnson City apartment while they were in an “obvious state of unconsciousness,” police wrote.
At least half a dozen names on folders containing videos of women were consistent with first names on a list labeled “Raped” that Johnson City officers had previously found in his apartment, a police affidavit said.
After being charged in connection with the child sexual abuse images, Williams in October 2023 escaped from a van taking him from a Kentucky detention center to a hearing in Tennessee.
Authorities caught him in Florida more than a month later.
He was convicted in July of the van escape and in November of the child sex abuse images of a 9-month-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old girl. Prosecutors said Williams also raped the children’s mothers while they were unconscious and that there were images and videos of them as well. Williams took the sexually explicit photos of one child in 2008 and the other two on separate occasions in 2020, all in his apartment, prosecutors said.
In Tennessee state court, Williams faces additional charges involving minors. In a North Carolina federal court, he’s charged with possessing child sexual abuse images and illegal drugs.
Two other federal lawsuits against Johnson City and individual police officers are still pending over the investigation of sexual assault reports against Williams.
Nevada
Man pleads guilty to killing two homeless people
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A man accused in a shooting that killed two homeless people and wounded three others has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
Cristobal Omar Perez, 32, entered his plea Monday, a day before his trial was scheduled to begin, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He will face a prison term of 40 years to life when he is sentenced April 8.
Prosecutors said a third victim is close to death and if that person dies, Perez could be charged and face a stiffer punishment.
The shooting happened Dec. 1, 2023, near a freeway overpass in the northeastern part of the city. Police said a gunman dropped off by a black SUV fired 14 shots indiscriminately at a group of homeless people and then got picked up by the getaway car. Investigators suspected at the time that the shooting was planned in advance.
According to an arrest report, police said Perez wanted to “protect his family” after someone tried to break into his sister-in-law’s home. She had told him she spotted a man at a gas station across from a homeless encampment who looked like the would-be home invader, and Perez decided to confront the man.
Police said Perez had his girlfriend, Kylee Au Young, meet him blocks away in a getaway vehicle. Her case is still pending. She faces two counts of open murder and a count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Defense attorney Frank Kocka said Perez took responsibility and that other charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Elizabeth Holmes fails to overturn her Theranos fraud conviction
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos, will remain in prison after losing a bid Monday to overturn her fraud conviction, with a federal appeals court saying she hadn’t proved there were legal missteps during her trial for defrauding investors with false claims of what her blood-testing startup could achieve.
The three-judge panel in San Francisco also upheld the fraud conviction of Holmes’ former business partner and lover Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — as well as a lower’s court order for the two to pay $452 million in restitution.
Holmes was CEO throughout Theranos’ turbulent 15-year history, claimed her startup had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked, and the claims were false.
A 41-year-old mother of two small children, Holmes began serving her 11-year sentence in May 2023 at a federal prison in Texas. Her listed release date at the Federal Bureau of Prisons is currently March 19, 2032.
Balwani, 59, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison in California for his role in the scam and is set to be released in 2033.
The pair alleged in their appeal that legal errors were committed during their separate trials in 2022 when the court allowed some testimony, including that of a former Theranos employee, and improperly prohibited other testimony.
Judge Jacqueline Nguyen rejected the claims, writing in the 54-page ruling that they failed to prove any violations or major errors by the lower court.
Attorneys for Holmes and Balwani did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment by The Associated Press.
Holmes saw a meteoric rise in Silicon Valley that landed her on the covers of business magazines that hailed her as the next Steve Jobs and raised nearly $1 billion in investments from software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family behind Walmart, and many others.
While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son, Alexander submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.”
The deception came to light in 2015 after a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal and a regulatory audit of Theranos uncovered potentially dangerous flaws in the company’s technology, leading to its eventual collapse.
One of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals, the pair’s blood-testing hoax has been dissected in a book, an HBO documentary and an award-winning TV series.
Washington
Supreme Court throws out inmate’s murder conviction and death sentence
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him.
The justices found that Glossip’s trial violated his constitutional rights because prosecutors did not turn over evidence that might have bolstered his defense.
“Glossip is entitled to a new trial,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for five justices.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, voting to uphold the conviction and death sentence, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett would have allowed a state appeals court to decide how to proceed.
Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the case, presumably because he participated in it at an earlier stage when he was an appeals court judge.
The justices heard arguments in October in a case that produced a rare alliance in which lawyers for Glossip and the state argued that the high court should overturn Glossip’s conviction and death sentence because he did not get a fair trial.
The victim’s relatives had told the high court that they want to see Glossip executed.
Oklahoma’s top criminal appeals court had repeatedly upheld the conviction and sentence, even after the state sided with Glossip.
Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.
Glossip has always maintained his innocence. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing Van Treese and beating him to death with a baseball bat but testified he only did so after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.
In 2023, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, said new evidence persuaded him that Glossip’s trial was not fair. Drummond has said he does not believe Glossip is innocent and has suggested he could face a new trial.
If Glossip were to be tried again, the death penalty would be off the table, Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna, a Democrat, has said.
Among Drummond’s concerns are that prosecutors knew Sneed lied on the witness stand about his psychiatric condition and his reason for taking the mood-stabilizing drug lithium.
Drummond also has cited a box of evidence in the case that was destroyed, including motel receipts, a shower curtain and masking tape that Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, said could have potentially proven Glossip’s innocence.
At least five justices voted last year to block efforts to execute Glossip while his case played out.
That was just the latest reprieve for a death row inmate who has eaten three “last meals” and been married twice while awaiting execution. Oklahoma has set execution dates nine times for Glossip.
The court faced two legal issues, whether Glossip’s rights were violated because the evidence wasn’t turned over and whether the Oklahoma court decision upholding the conviction and sentence, reached after the state’s position changed, should be allowed to stand.
The justices issued their most recent order blocking Glossip’s execution last year. They previously stopped his execution in 2015, then ruled against him by a 5-4 vote in upholding Oklahoma’s lethal-injection process. Glossip avoided execution then only because of a mix-up in the drugs that were to be used.
Glossip was initially convicted in 1998 but won a new trial ordered by a state appeals court. He was convicted again in 2004.
Tennessee
Suspect in dozens of rapes gets 95 years for child sex abuse images and escape convictions
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man accused in lawsuits of drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women received a 95-year prison sentence Monday for other types of offenses: the production of child sex abuse images and an escape from an inmate transport van.
Judge J. Ronnie Greer in Greeneville called Sean Williams an unrepentant “organized, methodical sexual predator of women and children,” according to the Johnson City Press. Prosecutors said Williams, who was already in prison, had razor blades in his shoes on his way to court.
Williams, 53, congratulated a prosecutor for a “dramatic performance” during Monday’s hearing in federal court and implied the images were faked or doctored. Williams laughed, shook his head and retorted when the judge said the only thing worse he could imagine would be being a serial killer.
Earlier this month, Johnson City officials voted to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by women under “Jane Doe” pseudonyms against the city and individual police officers that claimed police deliberately botched investigations over sexual assault allegations against Williams from 2018 to 2021.
Williams has not yet been criminally charged as a result of the women’s allegations in the lawsuits.
The city and the officers have long denied corruption allegations, including a claim in the women’s lawsuit that Williams paid police to obstruct investigations into sexual assault allegations against him. The settlement broadly includes up to 400 women, including minors, who lodged any report of sexual abuse or trafficking to Johnson City Police from 2018 through December 2022, due to accusations of gender discrimination. The settlement still requires court approval.
A campus police officer at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, found Williams asleep in his car in 2023 while he was fleeing a federal felon-possessing-ammunition charge in April 2021.
His vehicle contained cocaine, methamphetamine, about $100,000 and digital storage devices with more than 5,000 images of child sexual abuse. Williams was also in possession of photos and videos showing him sexually assaulting at least 52 women at his Johnson City apartment while they were in an “obvious state of unconsciousness,” police wrote.
At least half a dozen names on folders containing videos of women were consistent with first names on a list labeled “Raped” that Johnson City officers had previously found in his apartment, a police affidavit said.
After being charged in connection with the child sexual abuse images, Williams in October 2023 escaped from a van taking him from a Kentucky detention center to a hearing in Tennessee.
Authorities caught him in Florida more than a month later.
He was convicted in July of the van escape and in November of the child sex abuse images of a 9-month-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old girl. Prosecutors said Williams also raped the children’s mothers while they were unconscious and that there were images and videos of them as well. Williams took the sexually explicit photos of one child in 2008 and the other two on separate occasions in 2020, all in his apartment, prosecutors said.
In Tennessee state court, Williams faces additional charges involving minors. In a North Carolina federal court, he’s charged with possessing child sexual abuse images and illegal drugs.
Two other federal lawsuits against Johnson City and individual police officers are still pending over the investigation of sexual assault reports against Williams.
Nevada
Man pleads guilty to killing two homeless people
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A man accused in a shooting that killed two homeless people and wounded three others has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
Cristobal Omar Perez, 32, entered his plea Monday, a day before his trial was scheduled to begin, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He will face a prison term of 40 years to life when he is sentenced April 8.
Prosecutors said a third victim is close to death and if that person dies, Perez could be charged and face a stiffer punishment.
The shooting happened Dec. 1, 2023, near a freeway overpass in the northeastern part of the city. Police said a gunman dropped off by a black SUV fired 14 shots indiscriminately at a group of homeless people and then got picked up by the getaway car. Investigators suspected at the time that the shooting was planned in advance.
According to an arrest report, police said Perez wanted to “protect his family” after someone tried to break into his sister-in-law’s home. She had told him she spotted a man at a gas station across from a homeless encampment who looked like the would-be home invader, and Perez decided to confront the man.
Police said Perez had his girlfriend, Kylee Au Young, meet him blocks away in a getaway vehicle. Her case is still pending. She faces two counts of open murder and a count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Defense attorney Frank Kocka said Perez took responsibility and that other charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
