Elizabeth Holmes jury hears recording of her talking up Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes’s jury convened in the courtroom to listen for more than 30 minutes to an audio recording of the Theranos Inc. founder making a detailed pitch to investors that was played during her trial.

The recording during a 2013 conference call was captured by a Texas investor who testified about it in October. It featured the young entrepreneur touting her company’s extraordinary leaps of technological innovation, a rocketing stock price, and a closing window of investment opportunity.

Bryan Tolbert, an executive of Dallas-based Hall Group, testified two months ago that Holmes was so persuasive on the conference call that he approved increasing his company’s stake in Theranos from $2 million to $7 million.

The jurors are in their third full day of deliberations in a San Jose, California, federal court, after hearing three months of trial testimony.

The 37-year-old entrepreneur was charged with fraud and conspiracy in 2018, the same year that her blood-testing startup collapsed after previously reaching a valuation of $9 billion. Holmes is facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted.