Former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison

Sunny Balwani.
(Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, the former chief operating officer and president of the defunct blood-testing startup Theranos, was sentenced on Wednesday to nearly 13 years in prison for fraud.

Theranos attracted high-profile investors by claiming its tests could quickly detect several illnesses with only a few drops of blood. This wasn't true, and after The Wall Street Journal reported on the company and the accuracy of its machinery and testing, and it later came out that the executives were falsifying documents and faking test results, Theranos was dissolved. Both Balwani, 57, and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, 38, were accused of deceiving investors and charged with fraud. In November, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.