A lawyer for former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on Friday likened her final days running the troubled blood-testing startup to a captain valiantly trying to save a sinking ship.
Had Holmes committed any crimes, she would have been scurrying to jump overboard like a scared rat, her lawyer, Kevin Downey, told jurors as he wrapped up roughly five hours of closing arguments. Federal prosecutors spent three hours Thursday explaining why the jury should convict her.
Referring to a 2016 turning point that threatened to ruin Theranos, Downey asked the jury: “Did she leave? No she stayed. Why? Because she believed in this technology.”
As he did Thursday, Downey again depicted Holmes as a well-meaning entrepreneur who never stopped trying to perfect Theranos’ blood-testing technology and use it to improve health care.
“She believed she was building a technology that would change the world,” Downey proclaimed Friday.