EP. 50 FAKE IT UNTIL YOU'RE INDICTED: THE ELIZABETH HOLMES STORY

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Hi, this is Collin McCallin. Thank you for listening. Please do us a favor and leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe so that you don't miss any future episodes. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):

[inaudible]

Speaker 1 (00:25):

Things out there to our loyal listeners. Welcome to another episode of the, is this legal podcast. Oh man, we need to do that every time. This is, we can sing it. Um, we're we're we're w we'll work on that, uh, folks. Welcome back. Uh, hope everybody's uh, February 20, 20, 2021 is going well. Uh, today we are going to talk about a case Russ and I were kind of kicking around our next podcast idea, by the way, where, where are my manners sitting across from me today? My partner Russell Hebets. Hello? Hello everyone. I'm sorry. I didn't introduce you. How rude of me. And again, I'm calling McCallin and, uh, we were kicking around what we're going to talk about today. We were looking at trials, notable trials that are going to be occurring in 2021. And of course there's the current impeachment trial that's going on right now with Donald Trump. Uh, there's going to be the Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chovan, uh, he goes to trial later this year, we were thinking about doing a Roundup, but then we found one where we're like, Oh man, we should do a podcast on this. And, Russ, we're going to be talking today about our friend Elizabeth home,

Speaker 3 (01:36):

Elizabeth Holmes, the storied founder of Theranos. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:40):

Yeah. So some of you may know about this. Some of you may know a lot about it. Uh, maybe none of you know, any of about it. Um, Russ, let's give a quick little introduction on who Elizabeth Holmes is, who Theranos is and why we're going to be talking about her. In this episode,

Speaker 3 (01:55):

Holmes is a fascinating, fascinating figure. She is a young, well, she started this company Theranos in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford college, age,

Speaker 1 (02:07):

19 years old. So she starts

Speaker 3 (02:10):

This company in 2003. The company eventually gets to a 9 billion that's billion with a B dollar valuation.

Speaker 1 (02:20):

This company, um, was founded on the premise that it would revolutionize blood testing, uh, in the world. Basically, if, of course, if you know, if you last time you've gone to a physical and had to have blood work done, they put a really long needle in your arm, take out a lot of blood, sometimes two vials, and they use that to do your blood work. What she promised Russ was she promised, uh, the ability to run 70 to 80 different diagnostic tests on a blood sample from just a drop of blood from a pinprick.

Speaker 3 (02:52):

She got to the point where she was saying, you could run it 200 to 800 different samples, diagnostic tests of your blood from two drops, two drops of blood, that's it. And it all happened in this machine and this machine, it looked like kind of a PC.

Speaker 1 (03:12):

Yeah. It looked like a hard drive. They called it the Edison. They call it

Speaker 3 (03:15):

The Edison, right? Cause she didn't have any hubris. And all of this testing happened inside this black box, which was pre

Speaker 1 (03:27):

That's. Right. And so basically, um, what ended up happening with her? This is, this is a rise and fall story. Okay. So what happened is she, she manages to raise all of this capital from long, for, from really important people, former secretaries of state, um, you know, former, uh, C a CFO of Apple was one of her major, uh, investors. He was on the board. Absolutely. I mean, she, she managed to, uh, to assemble this rockstar board and w and, and she did this massive media campaign gave interviews to anybody who would listen to her talking about her idea, but there are no, it wasn't just based on this new droplet of blood, um, diagnostic test. I mean, they were also running tests using other equipment for diagnosing diseases with blood. They were doing this while they were developing their techniques.

Speaker 3 (04:22):

Yeah. And, and that's, that's really getting to the, to the crux of it. Like she was this visionary who she believed that she was going to revolutionize the world. Like people that she, she, and it was sincere, right. She sincerely wanted to change the world, make it a better place. And she thought, this is the way to do it by developing this technology. What was the problem though?

Speaker 1 (04:46):

None of it works. None of it works. First of all, a couple things, Elizabeth Holmes let's remember not a scientist, not an engineer. She's a college dropout who started a company. I mean, the, her admittedly, the drop of blood was her idea that this whole concept was her idea, but she did not implement any of the science behind it. And basically hired a bunch of people to see if they could get it to work. They never could get it to work.

Speaker 3 (05:14):

They never could get it to work. So what they were doing in the lab, they were trying, but what they were doing, essentially, they would buy third-party machines. So they were buying competitor's machines.

Speaker 1 (05:24):

Exactly. Yeah. There was a company called Siemens. They were buying their blood testing equipment and running tests, uh, using these third party machines and putting out the data as if it was their own.

Speaker 3 (05:35):

And they, weren't only doing that. They were doing things like have someone put their finger in a Theranos machine, take the blood, and then they would kick out a result. But they were running that on. What's called a null protocol, which means it wasn't testing that blood. It was just giving like average samples. It's like a test, like a, and they were saying, Oh, here's your results? Here's your cholesterol. Here's your sodium. Here's all these levels. You look here, you're looking good.

Speaker 1 (06:06):

Right. So, so what what's happening here, Russ patients are actually getting test results, believing that they have been tested accurately and what's happening is patients are getting misdiagnosed. I mean, there was one famous story about a woman who had her blood tested on a Theranos device. The device was unreliable. And, um, it turns out based on that test, her doctor called her immediately and said, Oh my gosh, we think that you have a significant tumor and might be dying of cancer. And it turns out none of that was true. It was based on this faulty blood test. And Theranos, here's the problem and why we're going to be talking about it today. There are nos knew that these machines were not scientifically validated. They knew that they were not producing accurate test results, and they kept the tests coming anyway.

Speaker 3 (06:55):

And so they kept the test coming. And sometimes they would test on their machines, which were inaccurate. Sometimes they would test on other machines telling people that they were testing on Theranos machines and they got, they had a $140 million contract with Walgreens. So you're, this is big.

Speaker 1 (07:14):

And that, and that's a huge part of it. Russ, why don't you tell them a little bit about that?

Speaker 3 (07:17):

So, so for a Walgreens was actually rolling out these Theranos wellness centers and they were rolling them out in California and Arizona and people were coming in thinking that they were going to get every test done. They didn't have to get a needle stuck in their arm. It was a finger prick. It was two drops of blood and none of it worked. So, okay. So we're to this point, now we're now into the 2000 and tens, and this company is massive at this point, it's getting towards this $9 billion valuation. Um, and it's rolling out these machines that don't do anything or don't work, how they're supposed to are super error prone and it's failed. So at this point

Speaker 1 (08:11):

Also faking data points. Remember that part too. They, they, they were, they were getting bad data. And so they would just throw out bad test results.

Speaker 3 (08:19):

They'd basically tell their scientists, they'd say, Oh, the scientists would come and say, listen, our safeguards are, are not, are failing. You know, we're getting these data points that are showing the machines. These tests are not accurate. And the Elizabeth Holmes and this other guy who will talk about Sonny Balani, who was a big investor, they were saying, Oh, any, any data points like that, that don't make sense. Just delete them. Just don't include them. Problem-solve it takes care of it.

Speaker 1 (08:50):

So here's where things kind of fall. And we'll kind of set up for what we're going to be talking about. Um, she is managed, she has managed for years, uh, almost over a decade to convince people that she's got this proprietary technology that can do what it can do. It can not. And this got exposed, uh, in 2015 by a wall street journal, uh, journalist, thank you. Journal journalist, uh, who wrote about this? His name is John Kerry. You, he wrote a book called bad blood. And by the way, guys, uh, there is a ton of content out about this case. There's an HBO documentary. There is a mini series on YouTube that ABC news put out

Speaker 3 (09:30):

News mini series is called the dropout. Uh, the, uh, I think the HBO is called Babylon, right? So there's a ton of stuff out there. It is fascinating. So anyone out there who has anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, like go look at this stuff because it's riveting.

Speaker 1 (09:47):

So the undoing, uh, comes when a couple of scientists who are working for Elizabeth Holmes, blow the whistle and they just say, okay, we've gotten to a point where we are lying to patients about, about their blood samples. And this didn't sit well with two people. So they decided to go public with allegations and they went to the wall street journal, basically provided all this information that the data is faulty, that, that there are noses covering up their deficiencies. All of these things start coming out. And, uh, initially, you know, there was a large PR campaign on behalf of Elizabeth Holmes to try and keep the company going. The company lost. Uh, it went from a $9 billion valuation all the way down to zero, um, closed its doors, closed the store, his company's gone. And now we have Elizabeth Holmes and, uh, Sonny bow Wani, who is her former lover. And he was her right hand, man vice-president who was also an investor in the company.

Speaker 3 (10:43):

Whoa. He was on the board. He was all these different positions. He put in over a hundred million dollars of his own money into it.

Speaker 1 (10:52):

And, and he is now charged along with Elizabeth with, uh, criminal charges related to sec fraud.

Speaker 3 (10:59):

Why isn't this a civil matter? This sounds to me like this was a company that failed companies fail all the time. Are you telling me that CEOs out there whose companies fail, are now going to be exposed to criminal federal charges?

Speaker 1 (11:17):

That's a great question. And it, it really kind of goes back to what is fraud? What are we talking about? And when, like, when does, what's the difference between like a bad business deal that just doesn't work out and criminal fraud. Right? Right. Well, maybe here's an example. Okay. Let's take, uh, just let's take the case of a payday lender. Okay. Love those guys. Yeah. I mean, you've seen these places. So person goes in to get a loan based on their paycheck. And what ends up happening is a person signs an agreement saying if I default on the loan, I'm going to pay something like 80% interest or something. Ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (11:55):

Not that high, but crazy interest. Clearly

Speaker 1 (11:58):

This is predatory lending. Clearly it's taken,

Speaker 3 (11:59):

Taking advantage of the worker. Ross, is it fraud? It is not because there is nothing that was false. So there were no false pretenses. There was no false representation. This was an agreement that was transparent, right? Like the person who got the loan, you know that if you don't pay it back in like a week, you're going to be paying 30, 40% interest on that. And even though like, that's going to bankrupt, you, that's going to take away everything. You knew what you were getting into when it started.

Speaker 1 (12:34):

We, we can look at that and we can say, you know, that's a shady business practice and you know, there's legislation trying to limit what payday lenders can do and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (12:41):

Quick, quick point on that, there was, this is several years ago. Legislation said, payday lenders. We don't like this. We want to try to limit it. So they actually passed a law that set a ceiling on how high the interest could go the next day. Every payday lender changed it to that limit actually like then,

Speaker 1 (13:04):

Well, yeah, I mean, we, I picked, I actually chose payday lending because we're talking about a shady, somewhat unscrupulous business, right. Um, here though, what's the w the reason that those transactions are legal and the reason that, you know, Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Balani are in this hot water is because they misrepresented. Yes. Uh, to everybody, they misrepresented what their company could do to their investors. They misrepresented what their company could do to comp third party vendors like Walgreens. They misrepresented the doctors, patients. Um, they lied to their employees.

Speaker 3 (13:40):

And, and the definition of fraud in the federal statute is as relevant to this is you make by means of false or fraudulent pretenses representations or promises. So everything that we talked about, Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Bolani, they did, right. There's a very famous, was it Forbes article? So, yeah,

Speaker 1 (14:05):

Forbes was one of the magazines that pushed Elizabeth Holmes into the stratosphere.

Speaker 3 (14:10):

She, after this Forbes article, she was everywhere. Like she was on ink magazine cover. She was, you couldn't, you can make

Speaker 1 (14:18):

Exactly. And, and they, they basically bought into her story. They were like, Oh my gosh, this woman is revolutionary. They, they, they loved the fact that she was a college dropout. They loved the fact that she was inspired by Steve jobs. They love the fact that she was a woman. Well, it was, it was an ultimate, you know, a success story.

Speaker 3 (14:35):

It was a phenomenal story. And like her, like she idolized Steve jobs. And this is like one of those weird quirks about her. So she idolized him so much. She wore black turtlenecks everywhere, everywhere. Like, that's all she started wearing. She, this is so bizarre. She changed her voice. She, when she speaks, like you can look her up and she does some Ted talks and she has this deep Veritone

Speaker 1 (15:03):

Can I do my Elizabeth Holmes, personation,

Speaker 3 (15:07):

Uh,

Speaker 1 (15:08):

Theranos is a mix between therapy and diagnosis. And we are going to change the world. And we are going to revolutionize this injured industry.

Speaker 3 (15:21):

No, it's worth looking like you have to Google her to see what she looks like, because she is this fairly petite blonde haired, blue eyed woman who like this voice coming out of her. It's just a complete non-sequitur. You're like, how, how can this be? And it can't be,

Speaker 1 (15:37):

Yeah. She, she read somewhere that, you know, speakers who have a low, deep voice, much more powerful and command mirror presence. Doesn't that sound powerful and commanding right there.

Speaker 3 (15:52):

So, so not only was she defrauding everyone about what she said their nose did, she was defrauding them with what she even sounded like his went to her call.

Speaker 1 (16:02):

She was deep riding her own vocal chords. Um, good for her. That's not a crime. Um, so anyway, the, basically the bottom cart starts crashing out all of the journalists, all of the tech world turns against her. Um, everybody flees and, uh, the company is defunct and now she's facing these charges and she's going to trial Russ this year, her trial was actually going to be in March,

Speaker 3 (16:22):

March. It was going to be about a month out, which made sense where we were educating everyone about this. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:28):

Yeah. COVID just pushed it out to June, I think July, I think. Yeah, but this is coming up this year. So, um, let's talk about some of this Russ, first of all, she's charged with wire fraud, a couple of questions for you. If you could set this up for us, are we talking federal charges or state charges, and then what is wire

Speaker 3 (16:47):

We're talking federal charges? So she has a total of, I believe 11 counts, nine for wire fraud, uh, two for attempted wire fraud, but all of these are federal charges. And in some of our past podcasts, we have talked about the federal cases and how you'd always want to be charged in state court, not federal court. Um, so fraud looking at 20 years, right? 20 years per count. Okay. So not, not to say she's going to get that, but that's, that's what she's exposed to in this. And so essentially the federal wire fraud statute States that if you're intending to through some scheme to obtain money or property by false or fraudulent pretenses representations or promises, and something is transmitted by wire. So like, it's, it's really that broad. It doesn't have to be money. Although in this case, she's charged with defrauding investors, number one, and then she's charged with defrauding doctors and patients, number two for you to be charged federally with wire fraud. There just has to be some interstate transfer of something by wire. Okay. So in this case you have maybe $10 million being transmitted from a Texas bank to her bank in California for an investor, you have an investor in Chicago from his bank wiring 25 million to invest. Those are interstate transfers. They were induced because she lied or misrepresented that is wire fraud right now for the doctors and patients, all you need is, okay, someone got tested in Arizona, you sent via wire test results, right? That's the one

Speaker 1 (18:46):

Wiring doesn't, isn't limited to just money. It's really kind of electronic communication surrounding the fraudulent transaction. That's it. Right,

Speaker 3 (18:54):

Exactly. Right. So, and then the other thing is, you know, they, they transmitted money to buy advertising, to induce doctors and patients to recommend Theranos and that's defrauding doctors and patients. So those are the two classes of victims. Those are what she and sunny Bolani are charged with. And, and why, why does it make sense for this to be criminal? Because there was a civil case, right? There was a civil case. She settled that for half a million dollar fine and agreed not to be a officer of a company for 10 years.

Speaker 1 (19:28):

Right. And that was, that was a settlement. Was that with the sec,

Speaker 3 (19:30):

That was with the sec. So that was a civil sec settlement. Didn't expose her to criminal offenses, but why does it make sense to have this be criminal Collin? Because

Speaker 1 (19:40):

Really when you look at it, it's tantamount to theft. Um, you're, you're, you're getting people to part with their money based on something that Elizabeth Holmes knows is not true. Right. She's saying, Hey, look at, look at what my company can do. It can do X, Y, and Z. It can run 200 tests or, or shortly we'll be able to run two tests. I mean, you know, she was, she saw her bets a little bit. Right. Um, we we'll get to that cause that's going to be part of her defense. Right. Uh, but you know, she's, she's saying, Hey, I can, I can do all these things. Give me $50 million the minute that dude investor, you know, sends the 50 million.

Speaker 3 (20:16):

Yeah. So that is, that is theft, right? That is your you're taking money. When,

Speaker 1 (20:21):

And is this, would you have invested in that company, if you, if you knew that what she just told you was not true. Of course the answer is no, right. I mean, that's, that's what makes it,

Speaker 3 (20:30):

And, and so that, that's a perfect rationale for the, uh, criminal charges as to the investors, as to the doctors and patients it's even more compelling because they're talking about personal, you're talking about health, know, you're talking about like your example, the woman who, the third dose machine screwed up her test, she is, she is panicking. She thinks she has, she thinks she's going to die. Right. So you're talking about significant repercussions as to the medical side of this, the patients. So you clearly want to make sure companies have no incentive, have a disincentive to lie about things like that. So that's why, that's why this is happening. In fact, the FDA made a statement, thanking federal investigators for looking out for the health and safety of us citizens.

Speaker 1 (21:22):

Exactly. So, you know, the specific claims that we're talking about here with, with regard to defrauding investors, we've really kind of highlighted those. I mean, she basically made a bunch of claims either directly to investors or through the media, claiming that our company could do something that she knew it could not do. Right. Um, so that's pretty clear now with regard to the doctors and patients, um, you know, there were, there were a number of misrepresentations. Uh, the, she didn't tell patients that we're not using our own machines to test these devices. Um, you alluded to one earlier, she, you know, her whole company is based on this idea that you can get a drop of blood with a print pick at pinprick. But when you show up to, uh, one of these Walmart or a Walgreens places, you imagine your surprise. And we're like, Oh, we're actually using a needle. Right. I know that whole pinprick thing we talked about where we're not quite there yet. Right.

Speaker 3 (22:10):

They basically say, Oh, it's just, we're having some issues with the machine. We actually need to actually stick you with a needle today to get that

Speaker 1 (22:17):

Right. And then of course the final area is the, the tests that they were running were fraudulent and they were throwing out data points for bad outlying tests. Right. So, so they're, they're actually changing either omitting test results, changing test results, or misrepresenting test results to patients, which is fairly horrible.

Speaker 3 (22:36):

Yeah. So, all right. So let's, let's jump to what are her possible defenses on this case? Because it sure sounds like this was a scheme the whole time, a get rich scheme where she was just built this giant. It was almost like a Ponzi scheme, right. Where she just built this giant empire,

Speaker 1 (23:01):

There was a shell. It was, it was just a huge shell. Right. Um, so defenses, like if we're looking at Elizabeth Holmes, uh, and trying to Mount her defense here, one of the things that she has actually suggested through her own defense team, um, and actually I think is somewhat credible. Ironically is, you know, what she's basically saying is, look, my company was really, really close. We, uh, you know, we were trying to get there. Um, this was an idea that we had problems with. We never got, uh, to the point where these results could have been scientifically validated, but we were trying, right. Like our intention was good. We wanted to change the world. Uh, we just couldn't get our technology quite right.

Speaker 3 (23:48):

Yeah. That that's probably her best defense. And, and I think like from everything that I've read and seen on this, I think she did believe that I do too. I don't. So, so this isn't a case where someone, you know, we said, we just said, it's a big Ponzi scheme. It's a big shell game. It's built on nothing. She was actually, she was hiring scientists to try to develop this. Right. Like she had a lab where they were actually working on blood samples, where they were working on Theranos machines, trying to get them better. So this isn't a case where it was like, it was this obvious, like I have this department that is staffed by no one, you know, it's, it's one dude with a mop whistling, Dixie. She actually had, which he was hiring people out of college and she was trying to do it. So does that mean Collin? Cause we've talked about mental state before and you have to have a couple of well mental state. So if she didn't intend to defraud, if her intent was to develop this, she's not guilty. Right.

Speaker 1 (24:56):

I, I mean, th that's sort of fence, I think that's her best defense. And I see many problems with that defense for us. I mean, let's assume that was correct. Okay. Let's just assume that all the benefits, all benefit that out, that, that basically she was trying in vain to get this, to work where, you know, she could safely do blood testing. She didn't stop with the fake tests. Russ. She didn't stop misrepresenting to investors.

Speaker 3 (25:22):

She didn't stop misrepresenting to the media.

Speaker 1 (25:25):

There was a point of no return where she had the ability to say, okay, um, we're not ready for this Walgreen's rollout. We're not ready to do any sort of testing whatsoever. Maybe again, giving her the benefit of doubt. Maybe they did some testing and didn't know that they had such significant problems until they ran a few tests. But once they discovered them, once her, once her internal scientists who were telling her every day about these problems that they're having at that point, she could have said, we need to stop this. She doubled down and she kept going,

Speaker 3 (25:59):

Right? So at that point using money,

Speaker 1 (26:02):

She kept raising money on false pretenses telling people, Oh no, no, no. Don't listen to my employees. They're they're disgruntled. I mean, she, she targeted, this is another thing. I mean, there's some of the more nefarious stuff. She terminated employees who raised the slightest doubts against her. She sued them. Absolutely. I mean, she was very vindictive when if, if, if people turned on her and so, you know, all of this came out in the investigating reporting and it's, you know, the, of course there's another big thing. She was a lover of sunny bell whiny. And you know, this is something she's not charged with this, but this guy gave his own money.

Speaker 3 (26:37):

It's not charged with. I mean, what are they thinking? Who would, who would, who would be romantically interested with that guy?

Speaker 4 (26:45):

It's not a criminal charge, state, a bad person.

Speaker 1 (26:49):

Maybe it should be sometime. But, um, anyway, the, the problem there, she's not, she's not being honest with other investors that she's got a relationship with this guy. She's not, she, she kept it from the company. Um, he is, he's not only an officer. He's also an investor and he's got a romantic relationship going on with the CEO of this multi-billion dollar company. Right. So, I mean, they're there all of these things when you look at them together, right. Make this extremely damning. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:15):

It paints a very difficult picture.

Speaker 1 (27:18):

Believe me, Russ and I are criminal defense attorneys. We want to give, uh, Elizabeth Holmes, the benefit of the doubt as she deserves it. But we're also a well to borrow our phrase from our criminal defense attorney who represented the guy, the capital

Speaker 4 (27:32):

Magician,

Speaker 1 (27:34):

Not a magician. Oh yeah. You have a photo of my guys standing with a podium in the Capitol. I'm not a magician, I guess we're, we're in really, really deep on that one. Right?

Speaker 3 (27:44):

I mean, other, so that's, that's really her best defense and it's not a very good one. Um, her other potential defenses are, you know, she and sunny Bhavani are charged, both charged with identical indictments and, you know, theoretically one of them could just point to the other and say, wasn't me. It was, it was him or her.

Speaker 1 (28:05):

And I think sh I think Elizabeth Holmes is going to do that with Sonny by whiny. Um, you know, Bob Bonnie was a very, very aggressive. He was often the hatchet man who terminated employees who got crossways with, uh, Elizabeth Holmes.

Speaker 3 (28:18):

You said, it's none of your business about these samples. It's none of your business. Are you a statistician? You can't tell me that these donuts,

Speaker 1 (28:24):

He was attacking his own employees whenever they raise the slightest concern about anything, you know? So he, he, he's, he's an attractive figure to want to put the blame on what, think that you remember what we talked about earlier, she would talk to any, anyone, anything anywhere about her company. And in, in that Forbes article, we talked about where, where they eventually turned on her, is she patently made misrepresentation after misrepresentation in that article about what her company could do that led to further investment

Speaker 3 (28:59):

Add on. She said her machines were deployed with the military on medivac units, on helicopters, in the battlefield. None of that

Speaker 1 (29:06):

That's true. That that's a huge part. She said, yeah. She said that her, her machines were literally in medevac helicopters, uh, saving soldiers' lives, false, false, false patently, false. So, I mean, honestly the best witness against Elizabeth Holmes is Elizabeth Holmes. Right. It turns out right. So, um, I mean, we're going to watch this go down, but I'm sitting here scratching my head as to how there could really be a cogent defense here that would, you know, how about this?

Speaker 3 (29:37):

She was, she wasn't a scientist. We talked about that. She only had a couple

Speaker 1 (29:42):

Of years of chemical or a couple semesters of chemical engineering at Stanford. She wasn't the one in charge of the, the science she had, she hired scientist and she hired proficient scientists to do that. It's not her fault that the science wasn't there, she wasn't even in charge, I think. Yeah. I think that might be a good defense assuming for a moment that there was no paper trail showing that she did, that she knew what her scientists were or weren't up to. I mean, if you had the, the scientists in the lab, fudging data, without her knowing clearly that's going to be a defense. I didn't know about it. Right. But, uh, the, the, her own whistleblowers testified now. She knew we, we, we told her, we, we, we were concerned about this. She was ruining people's lives, by the way, one of those two whistleblowers, one was a scientist.

Speaker 1 (30:33):

One was a George Schultz's grandson. Uh, George Schultz was a former secretary of state, I believe. Yes. He had, he was in, he held, he held, um, cabinet level posts with three different Republican presidents, huge figure in American politics. He in fact died earlier this month. So rest in peace, George. Um, but it was his grandson who was one of the initial whistleblowers here. Right. If I remember correctly, I think, um, you know, George was, uh, close with Elizabeth and kind of got his grandson hired onto this company, which is so ironic because that led to her undoing eventually. Right. I mean, it was, it was going to come down at some point, like it was, it could not go on forever. Right. So, um, I mean, it, it really is a fascinating story. It's a true rise and fall story. I don't know why we love these kinds of stories so much, but in this particular case, it really is a fascinating character study of, um, really someone who I think has kind of a fraudulent sociopath.

Speaker 1 (31:38):

I mean, I that's my term, not anyone else's, but I mean, she really did, um, wreak a lot of havoc for a lot of different people, cost a lot of people, a lot of money, uh, misrepresented blood results to a lot of people. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens in this trial this year. I think it's likely to go in July and we'll probably do an update on it. Yeah. We'll, we'll try to give you an update and, you know, pay attention. If you see something on the news. Now you guys are informed

Speaker 2 (32:10):

And now it's time for DC O T w that's right. Russ is our 50th episode. I'll be 50 to us. Happy 50th who knew, and for anyone who didn't didn't listen last week, DCO T w is dumb criminal law. Oh, we really got to start doing that, man.

Speaker 1 (32:36):

Some powerful harmonizing. It's going to be sweet. So the DCO TW today, uh, this is, this is a pretty, pretty funny one. This occurred in the United Kingdom across the pond. Uh, so, um, three thieves break into a house to do, uh, either for TVs, you know, and, uh, they, they see the Motherload. They, they see these three jars full of cocaine, just sitting on top of this kitchen mantle inside of this house. That they're burglarizing lucky day for them. I mean, bonus bonus bonus. So, uh, you know, in addition, all the TVs and all the other crap that they stole, they bring it back to their room. They bring it back to their London flat and, uh, proceed immediately to start snorting the cocaine to get high. And they're all kind of looking at each other like, Oh, are you high? Is it working for you? No, no, no. They're not getting high. You know why Russ? I want to know why they're not getting high. Want to know they're not snorting cocaine. They were snorting the cremated ashes of the homeowners to pet dogs. These morons thought that they were actually doing cocaine when really they're doing Ash, that all the kids are doing it these days, man. That

Speaker 3 (33:52):

Is unbelievable. So that

Speaker 1 (33:55):

We don't have names for these knuckleheads. I don't know, maybe in, uh, in the UK, they keep that stuff private. But, um, yeah, I, I let, let's talk about our Ellsworth it's worth Peabody and Jeeps, right? So what are we on a scale from one knucklehead to five knuckleheads Russ? Um, where are we going to put these guys? What's your vote?

Speaker 3 (34:19):

I'm going to give them a four and a half knucklehead on this because it's, I mean, first of all, they call themselves drug users and they can't distinguish Coke from ashes. And I mean, I'm sure it was like in a big ornate jar. Like it's not, I mean, who, who keeps their cocaine in, in an urn

Speaker 1 (34:41):

Transparent, or it can be confused with cocaine. No doubt. I'm going to give it four and a half knuckleheads to Russ. The only thing keeping me from a full five is that one of these morons didn't go to the hospital, complaining the DOD on Ash that would have made it a five, a knucklehead does story for me. But, uh, yeah, thanks to our friends for, uh, the United Kingdom. It turns out the DCO TWS don't just come from the United States.

Speaker 3 (35:05):

And I, I mean, and I thought we had a, I thought we were the only ones who had these guys, but turns out it's CRA it's multinational.

Speaker 1 (35:15):

Yup. Yup. So anyway, um, there you go. There's our dose DCO TW thank you so much for checking out the is-ness legal podcast. Uh, we will continue to monitor Elizabeth Holmes and her legal fallout from this thing. And we'll provide an update later this summer with some more info. But in the meantime, Russ, you got anything else? Nope. Hit us up on a Twitter. Is this legal pod Facebook, guess what you can do now? I just found this out the other day. Uh, if anybody has Alexa, you can say, Alexa, play the, is this legal podcast and they're going to start playing it. Bam. There you go. I feel like our, our, we, our shift is just tripled. We're selling out baby. Get it before it sells out for sale. All right, folks, have a good one.

Speaker 2 (36:13):

[inaudible].