Thread by @MilesGCohen

"What were the other reasons you [left] stanford?" Downey asked

"I was raped when I was at stanford and I decided to leave to pour myself into building Theranos," Holmes testified, holding back tears.

"I was going to build a life by building this company," she continued.

Holmes discussed the trauma she had experienced at Stanford with Balwani.

“He said that I was safe now that I met him,” she said of his response.

Previously Holmes testified

"Was it your experience that mr balwani deferred to you in all contexts?" Downey asked.

"No," Holmes said.

When did you first meet mr balwani

"Right after I graduated high school…in china I was 18…he was 38…I understood that he’d been a really successful business person...I asked for his advice, on building company," holmes testified

Balwani told holmes she was mediocre and that "I needed to kill the person I was [and become], what he would call, a new Elizabeth, to be a successful entrepreneur," Holmes said.

We are looking at handwritten notes from Balwani to Holmes.

"Every Morning I will force myself out of bed and spend 30 minutes… to write what I want from my day….I will never meet with anyone for more than 5 minutes unless I have written down why," Downey highlighted.

"He told me he could teach me to overcome my limitations," Holmes said.

"so what about people who don’t have the natural instinct for business…”, Balwani wrote

"he was talking about me," holmes testified

“The single most important ingredient to this secret sauce is discipline," Balwani continued, as Downey highlighted

Holmes said Balwani prescribed her a particular schedule

We are looking at handwritten notes by Holmes which show, "my schedule for how I would work everyday and get ready to go into the office with some of the key tenets about how I would be or what I would focus on," she said.

The earliest time is 4 a.m.

Downey highlighted this section of her schedule well:

"Lunch : salad w/ tofu and tabouleh and green drink
dinner:…"

"he felt like I came off as a little girl," Holmes said.

“He would get very angry with me, and would yell me about the fact he was so disappointed in my mediocrity. And the fact that….I was never going to be successful,” Holmes testified.

“He would get very angry with me and then he would sometimes come upstairs to our bedroom and force me to have sex with him when I didn’t want to…” Holmes testified.

This was persistent throughout their relationship between 2005-2016, Holmes said.

We are looking at texts between Holmes and Balwani in 11/2013, shortly after the launch to Walgreens stores, downey noted

11/30/2013 was "one of the nights where [Balwani] came upstairs and did things to me that I didn’t want," Holmes said.

On 11/8/2014 around 2:30am Holmes sent a text to Balwani

"my new life as of this night and forever more," she wrote listing several items to be changed.

"No response?" she wrote 10 minutes later

"Awesome u r listening and paying attention," Balwani responded

Downey showed two other texts from Balwani in 2014 and 2015 respectively

“You are speaking with everyone in your giddy voice excessive use of “awesome,” he wrote


“u r rambling now lets stay focused,” he also wrote

On how Balwani interpreted Theranos' success, according to Holmes

"It was that he was [successful], that he had built me into what I was,” Holmes testified.

"I have molded you,” Balwani wrote on 5/6/2014 exchange.

Holmes responded with loving messages, as Downey pointed out.

Explain those responses, downey said

"...That he was happy with me that meant that I could be his. That I had satisfied his goals for me," she said.

On some occasions after Balwani would verbally berate Holmes, as Downey put, Holmes said she'd write thoughts on her iPhone in her notes.

We are going to see some from around April, 2015.

“I needed to be more like a man if I wanted to be in business,” Holmes recalled, of what Balwani had told her.

“I was a monkey that was trying to fly a spaceship,” Holmes recounted.

Also from Holmes' notes of what Balwani said to her:

"So angry at myself for coming. So angry spent 5 years of my life. Biggest failure of my life. Regret coming. Stayed because I love you.

No one told responsible, f**king mediocre quality of this piece of shit company."

She also took notes after occasions of forced intercourse, Holmes said

Including this one in 2/2015 titled "prayer" :

"Didn't enjoy literally anything about it or who I am if I did it...Can't even move let alone do situps or actually sit up. lying swollen. literally."

We saw texts from Balwani and Holmes presumably in this same time period (on 2/12/2015)

"Im sorry I wasn’t stronger for you this morning. That is my responsibility and my role I will never let that happen again," holmes messaged.

“My job is to love when you’re stressed."

"I thought he was the best business person that I knew…I think that I didn’t question him in the way I otherwise would have...," holmes said.

In 2016 that view changed, when she got the results from the late 2015 CMS inspection.

"I had gone into that inspection thinking we had one of the best labs in the world. And the findings from that inspection were so fundamentally different than what I believed," she said.

Balwani left the company in 2016, he didn't like the changes Holmes had made after getting back the CMS report, holmes said.

Did you continue personal relationship with balwani

No

Are you saying mr balwani forced you to make statements to investors...?

No.

...Controlled your interactions w/ Walgreens or Safeway executives?

No.

...Controlled your interactions w/ members of theranos board

No

"What impact if any did your relationship with balwani have on [your] work at theranos?" Downey asked.

“I don’t know…he impacted everything about who I was. And I don’t fully understand that,” Holmes said.

Did you have confidence in him for the areas in which he was responsible?

Completely

Did you often overrule him in the areas he was responsible?

no.

When Das recommended the thousands of test results be voided in early 2016 in response to the CMS report, Holmes said she deferred to him.

Others on the R&D team however pushed back, holmes said.

"Members of our R&D team believed that the tests themselves were good but that the operations of the lab had failed, the quality systems had failed," she testified.

Holmes is now talking about all the changes she made in 2016 in the wake of the CMS report. Including implementing new management etc.

We're looking at a 510(k) premarket notification for the Theranos Herpes Simplex Virus-1 IcG assay dated Nov 11, 2014

Over the course of time had theranos tech been looked at by 3rd parties?

Yes



How many 3rd parties?

Dozens

In regards to the 2016 AACC conference

Why did you choose that forum as a forum to discuss theranos tech?

"Because there had been a lot of hostile commentary from the lab industry and this was the lab industry’s main conference so we wanted to go there and present our data”

We're looking at a picture of Holmes on stage at the conference seated next to Dr. Daniel Young, and two other lead Theranos scientists.

To note: prosecutors did not object to any of Downey's questions in as he asked Holmes about alleged abuse by balwani

Holmes stared off towards the back of the courtroom as her attorney and the judge discussed a government objection to a peer reviewed study.

24 minutes left in the day. Peer reviewed papers are being entered into evidence for "limited purposes," due to objections by prosecutors.

One of Balwani's attorneys, Jeff Coopersmith, just left the courtroom.

Downey brings up the relationship between Theranos and Safeway— he notes that holmes testified last week that at some point after Steve Burd (then CEO) left she became less involved with that relationship.

Holmes told the jury about "the vision," as Downey put, she would share with prospective investors:

“I would talk about how we could change peoples access to testing...[about] changing what it meant to get a blood draw and being able to make that [experience] a wonderful one."

She smiled as she said "wonderful."

Holmes ends her direct testimony by telling the jury she never sold a share of stock despite it being worth $4.5 billion at one point.

"I didn’t want to. I believed in the company and I wanted to put everything I had into it," Holmes said, adding her shares are now worth zero.

Prosecutor Robert Leach will begin his cross tomorrow, he told the court.

#ElizabethHolmes #Theranos

Jury is out.