A panel of jury presiding over the case of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has made a temporal departure on Wednesday after an inconclusive verdict despite a six days deliberation.
In fact, the departure will go on until after the upcoming New Year’s holiday weekend.
The jury is made up of eight men and four women and it’s expected to continue with the deliberations on Thursday morning even though a court filing after they left disclosed they will be taking a break until Monday.
The reason for this decision wasn’t disclosed despite the fact that the jury had scheduled to take Friday, a federal court holiday, off.
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The latest round of discussions occurred against a backdrop of intrigue raised by a closed-door meeting early Wednesday involving Holmes’ attorneys, and the judge presiding over the case.
The indoor meeting included a U.S. District Judge, Edward Davila with two of Holmes’ lawyers, Kevin Downey and Lance Wade as well as two other prosecutors, Jeffery Schenk and Robert Leach, according to a court filing showed on Tuesday night.
Holmes was absent during the 23-minute hearing.
The transcript of the hearing has been reportedly sealed therefore, the matters discussed are currently unknown.
But it’s not unusual for plea agreement discussions to take place while a jury deliberates on charges, especially the longer it takes to reach a verdict. The surprise decision to take Thursday off may also have been a focal point.
The case brought against Holmes, 37, is of 11 criminal charges alleging that she had duped investors and patients through her blood-testing technology that she often referred to as being a “medical breakthrough” despite knowing that the technology was prone to errors.
If she’s convicted, she could serve up to 20 years in prison.
During the three-month trial, a number of important pieces of evidence were revealed to the twelve people jury who have continued to meet in a San Jose, California, federal courthouse.
Last week, the jury sent out two notes to Judge Davila — one making a swiftly rejected request to take their instructions home with them for further study and another that allowed them a replay of a 2013 recording of Holmes discussing Theranos’ dealings with prospective investors.
The jurors didn’t provide any inkling of their progress in deliberations this week.
But if anything, the case of Theranos and its CEO, Elizabeth Holmes has gained global attention.
The main plot of the story is of a young bright woman who dropped out of college to revolutionize the science and technology space with her “breakthrough” technology that can access human blood from a single drop.
She soon became the face of hype magazines and her business’ growth made her a billionaire but all lasted for a really short while after a bombshell investigative article was written about her company and how fraudulent it was.
