Sunny Balwani

Sunny Balwani: biography

Ramesh Balwani, who is known simply as Sunny Balwani, is an entrepreneur and former chief operating officer of Theranos, a company that worked in the field of health technologies. He was born on June 13, 1965.

He is associated with Elizabeth Holmes, who invented this company, and was arrested since this was a huge project for fraud. He and Elizabeth have both been arrested for defrauding investors with their fraudulent company.

Childhood and youth

Sunny is from Pakistan, he was born in the city of Sindh. Sunny was raised in an upper-middle-class family. During his childhood, Sunny studied at a private and prestigious boarding school that was located in Lahore. Then his family moved to India and, years later, to the US. He attended a university in Austin, Texas. The interesting fact that Sunny is not his real name is that it is just a nickname. In his youth, he was known only as Ramesh. Nobody knows when or why he adopted this moniker. In 1990, Balwani started working for Microsoft.

Theranos

Theranos is the company that, according to the words of its founders, found a revolutionary way to take a blood test, for which only one drop is needed. Later, it was revealed that these statements were false and that Theranos was created solely to defraud people and investors.

In 2009, Sunny started working at Theranos. As president of the corporation, he oversaw daily operations. Due to Sunny's actions and the lack of medical professionals on the board of directors, his lack of knowledge in biological sciences or medical technology became a problem. Theranos' Edison blood testing equipment gave erroneous medical diagnoses and findings in October 2015. A study published in March 2016 by the government Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services confirmed that Edison devices routinely failed quality-control inspections and gave wildly inconsistent findings (CMS).

Legal proceedings

When Sunny raised more than $700 million from investors "through an extensive, years-long deception in which they inflated or made misleading assertions about the company's technology, business, and financial performance," the SEC charged Sunny with securities fraud in March 2018. He claims he is not guilty of the allegations.

A federal grand jury indicted Sunny on nine charges of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to conduct wire fraud on June 15, 2018, after a more than two-year investigation. Sunny is accused of participating in two criminal schemes, one aimed at defrauding investors and the other at defrauding patients. Sunny was found guilty on all counts on July 7, 2022, and he now faces up to 20 years in jail as well as millions in compensation. He is presently awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for fall 2022.

Personal life

Sunny divorced his wife, Keiko, with whom he shared a home in San Francisco, in 2002. That year, he met 18-year-old Elizabeth Holmes. In all their relationships, Sunny abused her and controlled her everywhere and anywhere.