Stanford University general counsel Debra Zumwalt reportedly hoped to prevent further legal filings against her and other Stanford trustees.

Courts have thrown out a request from Stanford University general counsel Debra Zumwalt for a prevention order prohibiting additional lawsuits from automated medical assistant developer MedWhat against her or any other Stanford trustees, Analytics Insight reported yesterday. It marks the latest development in MedWhat’s case against Stanford for allegedly abusing Stanford-StartX Fund to covertly violate the terms of its tax exemption as an eligible nonprofit body. Several trustees from Stanford’s endowment have come under fire directly for supposed conflicts-of-interest, prompting the legal team to seek a court bar on such subpoenas on the grounds that the trustees were not financial compensated for their activities. In the end, the court decided otherwise. Subsequent to the decision, MedWhat moved new charges against Stanford’s trustees and Zumwalt relating to alleged tax fraud and money laundering. Its attorneys reportedly sought to substantiate purported levels of corruption in the endowment’s upper echelons, going so far as to compare officials to “mafioso thugs”. MedWhat accuses Zumwalt of illegally operating Stanford-StartX Fund by ordering the vehicle to invest directly from Stanford bank accounts despite identifying Stanford-StartX Fund as the investor in filings to regulators, in an attempt to circumvent the tax exemption rules. Suzanne Fletcher, then manager of Stanford-StartX Fund, is implicated for allegedly discharging her role under false pretenses, by disguising the supposed setup to media outlets and within the StartX accelerator. In addition, MedWhat’s submission highlights alleged conflicts of interest between Stanford-StartX Fund-backed companies and the university’s trustees. Felix Baker, one of the trustees, is cited as the director of Stanford-StartX Fund-backed Kodiak Sciences, for instance, meaning that his personal interest may have directly received Stanford University funds. Zumwalt, meanwhile, is cited as the director for Exponent, a consultancy that has provided its services to Stanford University previously.

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