Theranos president and ex-lover of founder Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, will be sentenced today.
Balwani, 57, was convicted in July on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy after persuading investors and patients to trust the company’s faulty blood testing devices.
He faces a sentence of 20 years for each of the 12 counts, but legal experts expect the sentences to be served at the same time, giving him a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, was sentenced last month to 11¼ years for four counts of criminal fraud tied to her now defunct blood-testing startup.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who oversaw both trials, could choose to give Mr. Balwani more time in prison than Ms. Holmes because he was found guilty on additional counts, lawyers said.
Judge Davila could find that investors suffered a larger loss due to Mr. Balwani’s fraud, or that Mr. Balwani recklessly put patients at risk of death or serious bodily injury, both of which could add years to his sentence.
Prosecutors filed a legal memorandum last week arguing that the severity of the fraud and the need to “promote respect for the law” warrant a prison term of 15 years for Balwani.
Balwani’s lawyers, meanwhile, said their client should not receive any jail time, arguing instead that probation would prove sufficient. In a court filing, the lawyers noted Balwani’s financial losses on Theranos and contrasted Balwani’s low public profile with Holmes, who drew “fame and media attention.”
The Balwani sentence marks the final chapter in a corporate scandal that erupted more than seven years ago following a series of Wall Street Journal articles that called into question Theranos’s claims about its blood-testing technology.
