Elizabeth Holmes trial: Jury selection begins Aug. 31

Yahoo Finance is premiering its first documentary film about fallen Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes. Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan shares the details.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: , Yahoo Finance is premiering its first ever documentary film about fallen Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and her now defunct blood testing company, Theranos. Holmes is charged with defrauding some of her investors and faces up to 20 years in prison and a federal trial scheduled to begin with jury selection on Tuesday.

Yahoo Finance's Legal Reporter Alexis Keenan joins us now to discuss. And Alexis, I know you were hard at work on this one for quite some time. But what did you give the team set out to highlight with the film?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Hi, Zack. Yes, after long delays of this trial, not only because of the pandemic, but also because of the birth of Elizabeth Holmes' firstborn child, but everybody at Yahoo Finance that worked on this film really looks forward to sharing this new perspective that we have and learning more as the trial really gets underway.

It's been three years already since Holmes was forced to shutter Theranos and since that flood of media attention that came on the heels of former Wall Street Journal Reporter John Carreyrou's investigation, so we endeavored to really look at the collapse of Theranos through a financial and also a behavioral lens.

And we tried to do that by asking, really, how much of Elizabeth Holmes' behavior was business as usual in the startup culture that exists in Silicon Valley, and also how her company survived for 10 plus years and also brought a product to market when she was surrounded by some of the world's top advisors, investors, and business partners.

So ultimately, what we wanted to know is if any other party, other than Holmes and her co-defendant Balwani, if anybody else should shoulder any of the blame. And that includes looking at the board. That includes looking at investors, also partner Walgreens at one point. So I'd like to show you a clip from the film that goes through that point. It's an interview with University of Washington History Professor Margaret O'Meara. Let's watch.

MARGARET O'MEARA: You can't do it alone. She was and as a singular figure. And she does bear responsibility. I mean, even as young as she was, she bears responsibility for what happened under her watch. Look, so many other people went along with her. So many other people wanted it to happen. She will say in her defense, you know, it wasn't me alone. And that's true. It's true of every entrepreneur. It's never them alone.

ZACK GUZMAN: , You know, we're talking about a founder's pitch here, what the government sees as fraud. When the trial tries to apply that-- I mean, these are a jury of her peers-- I wonder how that's going to go.

ALEXIS KEENAN: Right, so Zach, no matter how the public views the debacle that happened at Theranos and Holmes' tactics, it's really the government that has the burden here. So what the jury is going to weigh are the legal elements for what she's charged with. And that is federal wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Now here, it's the government's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. These elements, first, they have to show that Holmes knowingly participated in, devised, or intended to devise a scheme to defraud. Also, they have to show that her statements or omissions were material. And that means that they tended to influence others to part with their money.

Third, Holmes is going to have to have shown to have intended to defraud, and that is to deprive someone of something of value, whether it's money or otherwise, by deceit. And last, the government is going to have to show that she used interstate commerce to carry out this scheme. That's the easy one there. That's why it is a wire fraud charge.

Jury selection here slated to begin on Monday, so there's a lot more of this story still to be told, Zach. And we certainly hope that viewers find some new information about Elizabeth Holmes and about Theranos as they watch the film.

ZACK GUZMAN: , And we should note, Alexis Keenan there, that it is going to be debuting here the first original documentary, "Vallye of Hope--" or "Valley of Hype, the Culture that Built Elizabeth Holmes" debuts Monday, August 30. You can catch the pre-show starting at 4:30 PM Eastern time at YahooFinance.com/theranosdocumentary.