Court rejects Elizabeth Holmes’ latest effort to stay out of prison while on appeal
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes appears to face jail soon after an appeals court on Tuesday denied her request for release while she tries to overturn her conviction over a blood test falsification that caused her fleeting fame and brought wealth.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling comes nearly three weeks after Holmes made a last-minute legal maneuver to delay the start of her 11-year sentence. US District Judge Edward Davila ordered her to surrender to authorities on April 27 and sentenced her in November.
Davila will now set a new date for 39-year-old Holmes to leave her current home in the San Diego area and report to jail.
The sentence separates Holmes from her current partner William “Billy” Evans, their one-year-old son William and their three-month-old daughter Invicta. Holmes’ pregnancy with Invicta — Latin for “invincible” or “unconquered” — began after a jury convicted her of four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022.
Davila recommended that Holmes serve her sentence in a women’s prison in Bryan, Texas. It was not disclosed whether the Federal Bureau of Prisons accepted Davila’s recommendation or assigned Holmes to another facility.
Holmes’ former lover and first lieutenant at Theranos, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, began serving a nearly 13-year sentence in April after being convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy in a separate trial last July. Balwani, 57, was jailed in a Southern California jail after failing a similar attempt to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction.
Holmes’ verdict came after a 46-day court hearing and other evidence that highlighted a culture of greed and hubris that infected Silicon Valley as technology gained an increasingly pervasive impact on society and the economy over the past 20 years .
The most exciting moments of the trial occurred when Holmes took the stand to testify in her own defense.
In addition to recounting how she founded Theranos as a teenager after dropping out of Stanford University in 2003, Holmes also accused Balwani of emotionally and sexually abusing her. She also claimed she never stopped believing that Theranos would revolutionize healthcare with a technology that she promised could detect hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood.
While pursuing this bold goal, Holmes raised nearly $1 billion from a list of wealthy investors that included Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. These savvy investors all lost their money after a Wall Street Journal investigation and regulatory reviews uncovered dangerous flaws in Theranos’ technology.
Holmes’ lawyers are fighting her conviction over alleged errors and misconduct during her trial. They have also contended that errors and abuses affecting the jury were so egregious that she should be allowed to remain out of prison during the appeals process – a request now supported by both Davila and the Court of Appeals of the United States Ninth Circuit was dismissed.