Gabe Nugent, White Collar Practice Area co-chair and partner, was recently featured in Stat News' podcast episode "Sarepta's Big Week, Theranos' Legal Woes, and Parsing AI Hype," commenting on the fraud scandal involving Silicon Valley health care company Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes and president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani.
Nugent explained that Theranos is "a special case" when it comes to fraud largely because Holmes and Balwani didn't just commit fraud against investors, but against patients and doctors.
"What you have are people whose lives were played with," Nugent said. "So, it essentially creates a sympathy vacuum." This may influence the duo's sentencing if convicted, potentially resulting in a longer prison stay than cited fraudsters Bernie Madoff and Martin Shkreli.
Listen to the full podcast here.