So it wasn’t all bad

Elizabeth Holmes is a con artist who deserves to go to prison, but this can at least be a mitigating factor at sentencing:

The family of former education secretary Betsy DeVos was misled by Elizabeth Holmes when the former Theranos chief executive persuaded the billionaire dynasty to invest $100 million in the biotech start-up, a representative of the family’s office testified Tuesday.

Holmes, who is on trial in San Jose accused of criminal wire fraud, handpicked the DeVos family and other billionaire investors to fund the biotech start-up, said Lisa Peterson, who oversees private equity investments at the family’s office, RDV, and was in charge of handling the Theranos deal, according to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Prosecutors allege that while Holmes was promoting the company’s portable blood-testing devices that drew blood through the prick of a patient’s finger and supposedly screened it for diseases, she knew the technology did not work as advertised and provided misleading financial information to investors to back up her claims.

But the pitch by Holmes to the DeVos family in 2014 was so strong that the family doubled its initial $50 million investment to $100 million, according to court testimony.

Nicely done. Hopefully there are more grifters out there who can siphon off some of the Amway family fortune.