Convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes’ prison sentence delayed
Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of blood testing startup Theranos, has avoided starting her over 11-year prison sentence on Thursday.
Holmes’ lawyers on Wednesday informed US District Judge Edward Davila that she won’t be reporting to prison as scheduled because she had filed an appeal of a decision that he issued earlier this month ordering her to begin her sentence on April 27.
The appeal, filed late on Tuesday, automatically delays Holmes’ reporting date. She has been free on bail since a jury found her guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy in January 2022.
It’s the same legal loophole that enabled her co-conspirator and former lover, Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani, to avoid prison for an additional month.
Balwani, 57, is now serving a nearly 13-year prison sentence in a federal prison located in California after being convicted of 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
The verdict followed a four-month trial revolving around her downfall from a rising Silicon Valley star to an alleged scam artist chasing fame and fortune while fleecing investors and endangering the health of patients relying on Theranos’ flawed blood tests.
When she was sentenced to 11 years in prison in November, she was visibly pregnant. She had given birth to her first child with her partner Billy Evans in July 2021, while she was on trial for fraud.
Although they had separate trials, Holmes and Balwani were accused of essentially the same crimes centred on a ruse touting Theranos’ blood-testing system as a revolutionary breakthrough in health care. The claims helped the company become a Silicon Valley sensation that raised nearly $1 billion from investors.
Holmes, last appeared in court about a month ago, shortly after giving birth to her second child in an attempt to persuade Davila to allow her to remain free while she appeals her conviction. Davila, who scolded Holmes for betraying Silicon Valley’s history of innovation when he sentenced her in November, subsequently rejected that request.
The judge had recommended Holmes be incarcerated at a low-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas, but it has not been publicly disclosed if that is where she has been assigned to serve her sentence.
Holmes founded her Silicon Valley startup, Theranos, in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University. She claimed to have invented a machine to perform dozens of tests using much less blood than standard tests.
The company attracted high-profile investors, and was valued at $9billion before it began to collapse in 2015.
Holmes, along with her ex-boyfriend and Theranos COO Sunny Balwani, was charged with fraud three years later, after extensive reporting revealed that her machines couldn’t perform most of the functions she claimed.
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