What Elizabeth Holmes jurors will be asked ahead of fraud trial
31 August 2021
Jury selection begins today in USA v. Elizabeth Holmes, with the actual jury trial to get underway on Sept. 8.
Why it matters: Theranos was the biggest fraud in Silicon Valley history, putting both hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of patients' health at risk.
Among the questions for potential jurors, per a court filing:
- Do they or anyone close to them have experience in such areas as venture capital investing, finance, blood testing, healthcare or blood testing?
- Have they ever received any form of medical treatment (including vaccinations) in a pharmacy and/or grocery store? You may recall that Theranos had in-store deals with both Walgreens and Safeway.
- Have they commented, liked or otherwise interacted on social media with anything relating to Holmes, Theranos or Sunny Balwani? They'll also be asked if they follow any of 15 listed journalists (via Twitter, podcasts, etc), or if they've seen or listened to a list of programs that have discussed the case.
The potential witness list includes former Theranos board members like Jim Mattis, Bill Frist and Henry Kissinger.
- Others include attorney David Boies, ex-Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, Coatue Management's Philippe Laffont, ex-Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond Hellmann, and journalists John Carreyrou (WSJ) and Roger Parloff (ex-Fortune).
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.