As Elizabeth Holmes has testified in her federal fraud trial in San Jose, the 37-year-old reportedly has invited a growing number of her college friends and sorority sisters to attend in a show of support.
CNBC reported on Thursday that the disgraced Theranos founder, who was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta at Stanford University before dropping out as a sophomore to found the blood testing company, "called former friends and sorority sisters" asking if they’d attend her trial. The outlet reported the friends who have attended "regularly" dodge reporters' questions about their identities.
One friend told a reporter "I don't remember" when asked for her name, while another told a reporter her first name was the same as an actress whom social media users mistook her for while following the trial. The latter woman is Jackie Lamping, a New York marketing executive who was in Holmes' sorority at Stanford.
Neither is the first member of Holmes' entourage to be cagey with their identity.
William "Bill" Evans, a Southern California hotel magnate and the father of Holmes' partner, Billy, first identified himself to reporters as "Hanson," claiming he was a "concerned citizen" who "(fixed) up old cars for a living" while speaking with reporters during jury selection. NPR revealed Evans' ruse in September, after Evans appeared among Holmes' entourage during opening arguments a week later.
CNBC reported on Thursday that not all of Holmes' friends had accepted her invitation, and one "backed off because she was uncomfortable with the request." For over three months, Holmes' trial has remained firmly in the national spotlight, following years of reporting chronicling Theranos' roller-coaster rise and fall.
“I think she's probably feeling like 'I will beat this,' she has a lot of optimism and a little bit of woe is me," a source, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation and identified as Holmes' "former close friend," told the outlet.
"I don't think there's guilt based on my conversations with her," the source added.
Holmes faces 11 felony charges of defrauding and conspiring to defraud investors, doctors and patients. She could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison, if convicted.
