Elizabeth Holmes: Disgraced Theranos founder delays going to jail after profitable enchantment

Apr 29, 2023 at 11:36 AM
Elizabeth Holmes: Disgraced Theranos founder delays going to jail after profitable enchantment

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced tech billionaire convicted of fraud, has averted beginning her 11-year jail time period on Thursday after a choose backed her enchantment to delay it.

Holmes, 39, who based Theranos, was sentenced to 11 years and three months after being found guilty of three counts of investor fraud and one depend of conspiracy in November, following a four-month trial.

Theranos, a Silicon Valley sensation, promised to check for dozens of illnesses from a single blood check, however was discovered to have flawed know-how.

Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, former president and chief operating officer (COO) of Theranos and ex-boyfriend of founder Elizabeth Holmes, leaves after the opening day of his federal trial for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud was postponed due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) exposure in the courtroom in San Jose, California, U.S. March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Brittany Hosea-Small
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Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani was sentenced to 13 years

Holmes, and her former companion and subordinate, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, had been accused of fleecing traders who backed the corporate to the tune of practically $1bn (£803m), concurrently endangering sufferers’ well being.

Balwani, 57, is serving a virtually 13-year jail sentence after being convicted of 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

A choose in San Francisco upheld Holmes’s legal professionals’ enchantment towards a decrease court docket’s choice on Wednesday to disclaim her launch whereas she appeals her unique fraud conviction.

Earlier this month, Judge Edward Davila rejected an enchantment for her to be launched pending additional appeals and instructed her to report back to a minimum-security jail close to Houston on Thursday.

Read extra:
Theranos founder appeals against ‘unjust’ conviction
How Elizabeth Holmes went from Silicon Valley darling to disgrace

But late on Tuesday, Holmes’s legal professionals filed an enchantment, saying that call contained “numerous, inexplicable errors” together with references to “patient fraud convictions”, regardless that the jury acquitted Holmes on these counts, Sky’s US companion, NBC News, mentioned.

Holmes was sentenced in November for what prosecutors referred to as “among the most substantial white collar offences Silicon Valley or any other district has seen”.

Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout: Pic Disney+
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Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout. Pic: Disney+

She turned America’s youngest-ever self-made feminine billionaire by 2014, however after the tech was uncovered as bogus, the corporate – as soon as valued at $9bn (£7.3bn) – shortly got here crashing down.

Prosecutors have till 3 May to reply to Holmes’s newest movement, NBC News mentioned.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes arrives at the federal courthouse accompanied by members of her family and her partner Billy Evans, to ask a U.S. judge at a hearing to pause her prison sentence of more than 11 years while she urges an appeals court to review her conviction on charges of defrauding investors in the blood testing startup at the federal courthouse in San Jose, California, U.S., March 17, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
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Holmes outdoors court docket with household and pals, together with companion Billy Evans

Holmes’s time period will start round 20 years after she dropped out of Stanford to discovered Theranos, impressed by the successes of Silicon Valley heavyweights like Apple boss Steve Jobs.

She has two kids, each fathered by her present companion, William “Billy” Evans, who she met after breaking apart with Balwani.

Her astonishing rise and fall from history-making billionaire to the brink of jail has impressed documentaries, podcasts, and an award-winning TV drama – The Dropout – starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes.