Billionaire entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes begins serving her 11-year sentence this Tuesday (30). She was convicted last November of defrauding hundreds of investors while running the now-defunct startup, Theranos.
Her request to remain free on bail while she fights to overturn her conviction was denied by an appeals court earlier this month. Judge Edward Davila, who presided over her trial, ordered Holmes to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons by May 30 to begin serving her sentence.
Holmes will serve her sentence at the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in southern Texas, a minimum-security federal prison located about 160 kilometers from Houston, the city where she grew up before moving to California to study at Stanford University.
Who is Elizabeth Holmes
Holmes was once an icon in the tech world. She dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to focus full-time on Theranos, a startup that claimed to have invented a technology that could accurately test for a range of conditions using just a few drops of blood.
Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors and was valued at around $9 billion at its peak – making Holmes a billionaire. She graced magazine covers and became a poster child for the limitless ambitions and potential of Silicon Valley.
Her company began to crumble after a 2015 investigation by The Wall Street Journal reported that Theranos had conducted only about a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its original technology. It also came to light that Theranos was relying on devices manufactured by traditional blood testing companies, rather than its own technology.
Theranos dissolved in September 2018.
Holmes and her ex-boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were indicted together for the first time nearly five years ago on the same 12 criminal charges. In addition to prison time, they were ordered to pay restitution of about $452 million to the victims of their crimes.
Before her sentence was announced in November, an emotional Holmes spoke to the court in San Jose, California:
“I loved Theranos. It was the work of my life,” she said. “The people I tried to engage with at Theranos were the people I loved and respected the most. I am devastated by my failures.”
She apologized to the employees, investors, and patients of Theranos.
“I’m sorry. I gave everything I had to build our company and save it,” she said. “I regret my failures with every cell of my body.”
Source: CNN