The letter went on to say that, if Erika wished to avoid litigation, she
must submit to an interview with Boies Schiller attorneys and reveal
what information she had disclosed about Theranos and to whom. It
was signed by David Boies. Erika drove to Julia’s house and stayed
there all weekend with the blinds closed, too terrified to set foot
outside.
—
BACK ON THE OTHER COAST, I was beginning to sense that things were
escalating. That same Friday evening, I got a text from Alan Beam. It
was the first I’d heard from him in nearly two months.
“Theranos is threatening me again,” he wrote. “Their lawyers say
they suspect I’m violating my affidavit.”
We got on the phone and I filled him in on the marathon meeting
with the Theranos delegation at the Journal a few days earlier. Rather
than scaring him like I worried it might, Alan was fascinated by this
new development. He had consulted with a new lawyer, a former
federal prosecutor who had worked on the Medicare Fraud Strike
Force, and felt less vulnerable to Theranos’s intimidation tactics. In
fact, he seemed to have changed his mind and to want to resume
helping me get the story out.
Later that night, an email from Meredith Dearborn landed in my in-
box. Attached to it was a formal letter from David Boies addressed to
Jay Conti, who was the email’s primary recipient. Citing several
California statutes, the letter sternly demanded that the Journal
“destroy or return” all Theranos trade secrets and confidential
information in its possession. Even though Boies must have known
there was zero chance we would do that, it was a shot across the bow.
Any remaining doubts I had that Theranos was waging an aggressive
counterattack were put to rest the following Monday morning. I was
sitting in my idled car listening to the radio while waiting for the
street-sweeping truck to go by—one of the less pleasant aspects of life
in Brooklyn—when my cell phone rang. I turned the volume down on
the car radio and answered.