Although Elizabeth Holmes was absent from the San Jose courtroom where her ex-boyfriend and Theranos’ former chief operating officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani’s felony-fraud trial started Tuesday — and where she spent many months on her way to her January fraud conviction — the founder of the failed blood-testing startup played a central role in the prosecution’s opening argument.
Holmes and Balwani, federal prosecutor Robert Leach told the jury, “were partners in everything, including their crimes.”
Balwani, 56, wearing a charcoal suit in U.S. District Court, is charged with a dozen counts related to the downfall of Palo Alto-based Theranos, founded by Holmes in 2003 when she was a 19-year-old Stanford University dropout.
