Theranos Ex-President Sunny Balwani Convicted on 12 Counts of Fraud

Like Elizabeth Holmes, Balwani was charged with engaging "in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors."

Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani.

(Photo: Twitter/@GCAssets)

Ex-president and ex-COO of Theranos, Sunny Balwani, was convicted on Thursday, 7 July, on all 12 fraud charges brought against him.

The 57-year-old businessman, whose trial went on for more than three months, had pleaded not guilty but now could face up to 20 years in prison.

Balwani contributed to the rise of Theranos by allegedly fabricating investor documents that lied about multiple things like collaborating with Johns Hopkins University and big pharmaceutical companies, attaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and about their technology being used by the American military in Afghanistan.

The technology used by Theranos, the company accused, made blood tests cheaper and easier compared to the conventional ones, because its tests required tiny amounts of blood that could be extracted from the patient with the help of a fingerstick.

Like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Balwani was charged with engaging "in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors" with the objective of promoting Theranos, according to the US Department of Justice.

Contrastingly, Holmes was convicted of only four of 11 of the same charges in January.

Balwani has been accused by Holmes of sexual harassment to the extent that he influenced her ability to make decisions for the company, according to the BBC.

Balwani was born on 13 June 1965 in Pakistan to a Sindhi Hindu family. He relocated to India for a while before eventually immigrating to the US where he did his undergraduate degree in information systems at the University of Texas (Austin).

You can read his full profile here.