In a bomb revelation just days before her trial for criminal fraud, Elizabeth Holmes’ defense attorneys claim she has suffered a “decades-long campaign of psychological abuse” from her ex-boyfriend and business partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
“Balwani’s control included monitoring calls, text messages and emails; physical violence, such as throwing hard, sharp objects at him, restricting his sleep, controlling his movements; and insisting that any success that he got it was because of him, “defense attorneys say. for the former CEO of Theranos, Holmes wrote.
The revelation is found in documents that U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sealed in the early hours of the morning. Holmes met Balwani when he was 18; he joined his blood testing start-up, Theranos, in 2009 as president and chief operating officer. The couple, who faces ten counts of fraud and two counts of conspiracy, later admitted in deposition tapes that they never communicated their relationship to investors.
Both have pleaded guilty and deny any offense in connection with what federal prosecutors call a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients.
Holmes’ lawyers plan to introduce evidence that Mr Balwani verbally despised and withdrew “affection if he disliked it”; he controlled what he ate, how he dressed and how much money he could spend, with whom he could interact, essentially dominating her. and erasing their ability to make decisions, ”according to the unsealed statements.
“Mrs Holmes’ allegations are deeply offensive to Mr Balwani, devastating to him personally,” Jefferey Coopersmith, Balwani’s lawyer, wrote in the statements.
The documents also answer the question of whether Holmes plans to testify. “Mrs Holmes is likely to state to herself the reasons why she believed, trusted and deferred Mr Balwani,” her lawyers wrote.
The presentations also reveal that Holmes plans to argue that he suffers from mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, intimate partner abuse syndrome, anxiety and depression because of his relationship with Balwani.
Balwani vehemently denied the allegations, citing them as the reason for his request for a separate trial, which was granted. Coopersmith writes that Holmes’ accusations “to establish his innocence would require him to defend not only against the government case, but also defend against his accusations because his allegations are so inflammatory that they cannot be challenged before the jury.”
Holmes’ lawyers also asked to separate his trials, saying he “cannot be near him without suffering physical distress.”
“She argues that if she is tried alongside Mr Balwani, she will likely suffer stress and physical illness that will manifest visually, so she will not appear before the jury in her true sense.”
In 2020, Davila agreed that they would be tried separately. The records were not sealed in response to a motion by publisher Dow Jones, a move that Holmes and Balwani’s defense attorneys tried to block until after the jury’s selection.
Separation of trials is a strategy that many legal analysts have said was an important decision for Holmes.
“What allows the defendant is to point, at trial, to the empty chair,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and legal analyst for NBC News. “To tell the jury he’s the real bad guy here, it was all of him, and for the jury to find some sympathy with this story and acquit Elizabeth Holmes.”
McQuade said this can go both ways, adding that “of course, in his judgment, where you have a different jury that will try the case, he could do the same with her. Point to the empty chair and say that It wasn’t Sunny, it was Elizabeth. “
Holmes and Balwani’s attorneys did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The selection of the jury for Holmes’ trial begins on Tuesday.
–CNBC’s Scott Cohn contributed to this report.