Thread by @eringriffith

🩸 Back in the courtroom for US v Holmes. 🩸

The clerk is checking courtroom tickets after a few book clubs showed up last week.

Cross-exam of ex-lab director Adam Rosendorff continues.

What happened last week via @erinkwoo: nytimes.com/2021/10/01/tec…

@erinkwoo Holmes is here of course with Billy Evans, her mom and an older man I can't ID.

Before the jury arrives, the lawyers are arguing about whether they can discuss problems at companies that Dr. Rosendorff worked for after Theranos.

Judge Davila said a journalist contacted a doctor who contacted the court clerk to point out that one of the defense's exhibits included a patient's real name, which is a HIPAA violation.

A media coalition (including NYT) has argued to unseal the juror questionnaires since we had little visibility into the final selection process.

The judge plans to privately question each juror about what they might want to redact and defense says they want to be there...

...to which the judge responds that that would be unnecessarily intimidating. Defense disagrees...

Judge Davila responds with a light dig against defense: "A couple of blue suits sitting next to them in a judge's chambers, what could be intimidating about that?" 👔

i wonder if the court would mind if i brought some wd40 for the creaky back door, otherwise i may lose my entire mind by the end of today

Lance Wade, defense counsel, has resumed his aggressive questioning of Dr. Rosendorff, getting deeply into the weeds on his role in setting Theranos's lab policies and QC testing with various emails.

The intended takeaway from the line of questioning, as far as I can tell, is that some tests at Theranos at some point did work and that when there were problems, many people at Theranos tried to fix them.

Rosendorff takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes as Wade cycles through various forms showing his signoff on assay validation from 2013.

In the meantime Roger Parloff has filed a declaration opposing defense's push to compel him to turn over his notes in reporting the 2014 Fortune cover story about Holmes and Theranos. He already provided both sides recordings of his on-record interviews with Holmes and Balwani.

Binder hijinks. While flipping through all the various emails Rosendorff asks someone to help him with the binder because "it's just opened up and it's just [hand wave motion] pages everywhere."

Defense counsel Wade reads from a deposition in which Rosendorff appears to contradict his testimony about the frequency of problems at Theranos labs.

"Problems come up in labs - every lab in America, probably every lab in the world - is not going to perfect, correct?"
"Yes"

Back from a break. Defense asking Dr. Rosendorff about his departure from Theranos.

Defense points out that Rosendorff was considering filing a qui tam lawsuit against Theranos, to alert the govt of wrongdoing (and get a % of the money recovered).

Dr. Rosendorff was also looking at other jobs before Theranos ever launched.

Defense: "You essentially had a foot out the door the whole time?"
"On occasion I would look at what other jobs were available."

Defense shows resume Rosendorff was sending around, saying look at all the great work you said you were doing at Theranos

Rosendorff: "I don't know if you’ve ever tried to apply for a job but it doesn’t serve you [to discuss ...] fraudulent activity/"

Defense strikes answer.

Wade is trying to make a big deal about how Dr. Rosendorff's next job after Theranos paid him more.

Dr. Rosendorff is not having it. "I wanted to join a reputable company whose mission I believed in."

Now Wade is trying to use Rosendorff's resignation email - the fakest email any employee ever writes - against him. "You wrote that it was a 'tremendous experience' and you 'appreciated the opportunity to work with so many talented individuals'" Gotcha!

Regarding my earlier tweet about the book clubs who attended the trial -

https://twitter.com/sara_randazzo/status/1445430194479583235

Wade continues to drive at the point that Dr. Rosendorff left Theranos for more money and the reason he expressed concerns about its lab results and asked to be removed from its Clia lab was to start his new job sooner.

Rosendorff sent himself a bunch of internal Theranos emails before he left. Wade accuses him of stealing trade secrets and violating HIPAA with patient data.

Interesting style of questioning asking the witness "You don't recall those times when you lied and again and again?"
"...no sir...?"

Judge mentions uBiome and asks how to say it ("u-bee-um?"), is corrected and says it right! Further evidence of my theory that someone once told him it was "therAHHHnos" and he believes everyone else is saying it wrong.

Judge Davila now says that Defense has had 4 days to challenge Rosendorff's testimony and says "You have challenged his confidence." Allows defense to question about Rosendorff's work post-Theranos, says to "probe lightly" to avoid liability or impeding his future career.

QC failure, immulite reagents, clia lab, advia, HCG, PSC, assays, vacutainers, nanotainers, we are nearing the end of day 5 of Dr. Rosendorff’s testimony and so very deep in the blood testing weeds please send help