Theranos’ Sunny Balwani Fails to Get Redo of Criminal Appeal

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, former president and chief operating officer of Theranos Inc., was unable to convince a federal appeals court to take a second look at his case after it upheld his criminal conviction for defrauding investors earlier this year.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a short order Monday said it denied Balwani’s motion for a rehearing before the panel.

The order also said the judges denied Balwani’s motion for a rehearing before an 11-judge panel, known as en banc. No judge on the Ninth Circuit requested to vote on Balwani’s hearing, the order said.

The original Ninth Circuit panel in February upheld Balwani’s 2022 conviction for a number of fraud charges related to the implosion of blood-testing startup Theranos. The court in the same order also upheld the conviction of Elizabeth Holmes, Balwani’s one-time romantic partner and founder of Theranos. The Ninth Circuit in May denied Holmes’ request for a rehearing.

The downfall of Theranos, which lied to investors and patients about the functionality of its single blood drop testing technology, captivated Silicon Valley for years and inspired books, films, and podcasts.

Balwani, who was charged in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, was tried separately from Holmes. He was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison and three years of probation. Holmes and Balwani were order to jointly pay $452 million in restitution to the victims who were defrauded.

On appeal, Balwani and Holmes both argued that the trial court improperly allowed former Theranos employees, including its top lab director, to offer expert opinions to the jury when they were in fact lay witnesses. The Ninth Circuit found that while the trial judge had failed to fully vet the witnesses as experts, the error was ultimately harmless.

The appeals court also rejected Balwani’s argument that federal prosecutors violated his rights by amending the indictment to include claims about the accuracy and reliability of Theranos tests run on conventional technology even though the indictment charged him for his misrepresentations about Theranos’ proprietary technology.

Corr Cronin LLP and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP represents Balwani.

The case is USA v. Balwani, 9th Cir., No. 22-10338, 12/22/25.