Federal prosecutors will be allowed to highlight Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ taste for globe-trotting and celebrity in her upcoming fraud trial, a judge ruled, after her attorneys argued that such details could enflame jurors’ “class prejudice.”
Holmes’ glamorous lifestyle included traveling by private jet, driving an expensive SUV and staying in pricey hotels while hobnobbing with influential friends and backers like former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Defense Secretary James Mattis.
US prosecutors in Holmes’ upcoming trial, which is slated to start in August after Holmes’ attorneys requested a delay due to her pregnancy, argued that the disgraced businesswoman’s lavish lifestyle and relationships with powerful people incentivized her to commit fraud.
