Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos who was convicted of fraud earlier this year, is asking for a new trial after claiming that a key witness visited her house unannounced and allegedly said he “feels guilty” about his testimony.
In a court filing on Tuesday with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Holmes’ attorneys said Adam Rosendorff, a former Theranos lab director who was one of the government’s main witnesses, arrived at her home on August 8 asking to speak with her.
According to the filing, Rosendorff did not interact with Holmes but did speak to her partner Billy Evans, who recounted the exchange in an email to Holmes’ lawyers shortly after.
“His shirt was untucked, his hair was messy, his voice slightly trembled,” Evans wrote about Rosendorff. According to Evans’ email, Rosendorff “said when he was called as a witness he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everybody look bad.”
The former Theranos lab director also “said he felt like he had done something wrong,” Evans wrote.
During his testimony last October — which lasted more than six days — Rosendorff said he departed the company feeling “very skeptical” about the accuracy and reliability of its tests. He testified he felt it “was a question of my integrity as a physician” to not stay at the company and continue to endorse test results he “didn’t have faith in.” He said he “came to believe that the company believed more about PR and fundraising than about patient care.”
