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Comment by petesergeant | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have a clear and simple answer on why she got two years less than Sunny Balwani?

Balwani's story is quite amazing. The dude won startup lottery and made enough money that he wouldn't have to worry rest of the life. He had a mansions, sports cars and lived his life happily. One day this young women walks in his life and wants help with her startup. The dude throws away everything to make her startup success, burns midnight oil and torches ethics. He is much older and thinks he is in love. Only later to realize that the woman was simply using him and chewed him out as soon as his purpose was done. They became so adversarial in the end that they literally campaigned to have each other in prison.

Important Life Lesson for Everyone: If you made your money, do NOT fall in love (or, god forbid, marry without iron-clade prenup).

You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater there.

Still better than bringing a baby into this world as s defense tactic in court.

Definitely don't think it is clear cut that he was the one being used.

I think the important life lesson is: do NOT deliberately grossly defraud people

Do fall in love. If you're rich enough, you can survive on half your wealth nicely, but in that case do take the prenup because you are a financial target.

Don't lose your ethics. He deserves quite a bit of his downfall.

Prenup doesn't protect you from the US justice system though.

Jeffrey Schenk, an assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor, said in court on Wednesday that Mr. Balwani should receive a longer sentence than Ms. Holmes because he oversaw Theranos’s lab, which endangered patients.

“Mr. Balwani had significant autonomy in running the lab. He made decisions that directly impacted the information that was communicated to patients,” Mr. Schenk said. The lab, he added, was the source of “some of the greatest harm.”]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230307122401/https://www.nytim...

Best analysis I've seen: "Balwani might have been perceived as someone “a little bit older and wiser” who should’ve known better."

https://qz.com/theranos-sunny-balwani-jail-time-elizabeth-ho...

If the court system can try kids as adults for their heinous crimes, then the "should've known better" reasoning doesn't stand up. Plus she went to fancy schools, and was highly educated. She already "knew" better than most people living in the US.

They both should have gotten longer jail sentences, their convictions should have been about the people she harmed with her machines. Instead it was all about how she and Balwani mislead/ripped off their investors (who didn't even do their own work in due diligence).

Now Balwani is serving at a Club-Fed prison. The $452 million restitution she's been slapped with? Just for investors, it seems. Can anyone find an article that states actual people being victims? Nearly all news reports say the restitution is for "victims", but then the victims are just Safeway, Rupert Murdoch, Walgreens... etc.

There is no justice here. Not in the ruling, not in the sentencing, not even for real people. "Being wiser" or "older" is just a BS made-up reasoning. Let's at least not sugar coat why she got less of a ruling than Balwani. It's enough of an insult to those who were actually affected to have seen how this all played out.

> Can anyone find an article that states actual people being victims?

Here's one: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/theranos-test-gave-false-mis...

My understanding is that there were a few at the trial

Yes, they used these employees statements to establish wrongdoings that Theranos committed... for the sole purpose of proving that the investors were defrauded. Not for people who had incorrect results, who then had to make hard life decisions based on it, not to mention the emotional trauma that this can inflict.

By "victims", I meant it in the context of the restitution. None of that half billion dollars that she owes goes to these people. All the articles I've read say she has to pay her victims in the title. But if you read the articles closely, they just say it's to pay back investors.

I understand your questioning of the situation but I think its pretty clear. She was not convicted of anything related to patients or their results so of course they are not her victims.

There's a believe that he was the one pushing her to commit this fraud.

She's white and he's not

She's also a woman. Women tend to get lighter sentences, especially if they have children.

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