THE SQUIZ
Two of America’s biggest criminal trials of the year – with 2 of the world’s most reviled women at the centre of them – have retired for the juries to consider their verdicts. Ghislaine Maxwell is accused of grooming young women for Jeffrey Epstein. And Elizabeth Holmes was charged with defrauding investors and patients via her biotech startup, Theranos. Both trials have been years in the making and examine the women’s alleged use and abuse of power.

CATCH ME UP ON MAXWELL’S CASE…
You’ll remember Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. Maxwell was Epstein’s girlfriend/employee, and this trial is about her involvement in sourcing 4 teenagers – some as young as 14yo – in the decade to 2004 to meet Epstein’s voracious sexual appetite. Prosecutors called her a “sophisticated predator” and claimed she built a special relationship with the girls before they agreed to give Epstein massages which turned into sexual abuse. Maxwell’s lawyers maintain she is the government’s scapegoat for crimes committed by Epstein, who was friends with many of the world’s rich and powerful, including Prince Andrew. Judge Alison Nathan yesterday told jurors they could choose to convict Maxwell if they decided she either ignored or “consciously avoided” knowledge of Epstein’s encounters with underage girls. If found guilty, she’s facing the equivalent of a life sentence.

AND WHAT ABOUT ELIZABETH HOLMES?
Back in 2014, the 19yo Stanford Uni dropout blasted onto the startup scene in California’s Silicon Valley with her big idea – a machine that could run hundreds of medical tests from just one drop of blood. In the ensuing years, she built her biotech company Theranos while styling herself on Apple founder Steve Jobs. The problem was Theranos was no Apple… It collapsed in 2018 after whistle-blowers exposed its issues to the media and federal regulators. Prosecutors in her fraud trial claim that she knew her technology was a dud, but she kept raising money to keep the company alive. Her lawyers argue that she didn’t purposefully mislead investors and that she believed she was building a company that would “change the world’ while being dominated by her partner/colleague Sunny Balwani. Commentators say the trial is a defining moment for the tech industry and its culture of over-egging the pudding. If found guilty, the now-mum could face up to 20 years in jail.