Ex-Theranos COO Balwani Fights US Over $900 Million Restitution
- No. 2 at startup argues he owes defrauded investors nothing
- ‘Extraordinary,’ US prosecutor replies. Judge is skeptical too
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Former Theranos Inc. Chief Operating Officer and President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani battled with US prosecutors over their proposal that he be ordered to pay almost $900 million to compensate victims of his fraud, telling a judge he owes nothing to investors in the failed blood-testing startup.
A lawyer for Balwani, who’s scheduled to report to prison next month to begin serving a 13-year sentence, argued Friday that Theranos was flush with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and intellectual property when he was fired in 2016, leaving the company once valued at $9 billion in the hands of its founder and chief executive officer Elizabeth Holmes until it collapsed in 2018.