A federal district judge from northern California tentatively declined to overturn former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes' four counts of fraud and conspiracy on Thursday, Politico reported.
Judge Edward Davila said that he wouldn't make the decision official until later in October when Holmes is set to be sentenced for scamming investors on her business with the claim that it could develop rapid blood tests using small quantities.
Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, as well as restitution to investors, for lying about the revolutionary healthcare technology, according to the outlet.
The Thursday hearing was the first time Holmes was in court since her guilty conviction in January. The Stanford University dropout once lauded herself as the next Steve Jobs.
During her trial last year, Holmes' defense attempted to paint her as an entrepreneur who merely listened to experts that approached her, without any special knowledge or liability for the false claims made by Theranos, The Hill noted.
"I wanted to convey the impact," Holmes said. "I wanted to talk about what this company could do a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now. They weren't interested in today or tomorrow or next month; they were interested in what kind of change we could make."
Holmes also claimed that Theranos COO Ramesh Balwani was physically and emotionally abusive toward her in their undisclosed ten-year relationship.
In U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenk's closing arguments in January, he characterized Holmes as choosing dishonesty over the truth, adding that the "choice was not only callous; it was criminal."
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