No mercy for the disgraced Elizabeth Holmes: Although she recently became a mother for the second time, the former Theranos CEO has to start her more than 11-year sentence at the end of the month. The 39-year-old had previously submitted an application for parole. This should allow her to remain free on bail while her lawyers try to convince an appeals court that alleged misconduct during her four-month trial resulted in an unfair verdict. However, San Jose-based Judge Edward Davila found her appeal unlikely to result in a quash or a new trial.
Holmes could still have another appeal against Davila’s recent decision. A maneuver her former partner and lover – Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani – successfully used to delay his scheduled March 16 date to begin a nearly 13-year sentence. However, a court rejected that appeal last week. Balwani is now scheduled to arrive in a Southern California prison on April 20.
Davila had recommended that Holmes serve her sentence in a Bryan, Texas prison. So far it is unclear whether she will also come to this facility. In any case, Holmes would be separated from her two children if she started her sentence on April 27 as planned.
Their first child, a boy, was born just before her trial began in September 2021. The youngest child, whose gender was not disclosed in court documents, was born sometime after her sentencing in November. The two children’s father is William “Billy” Evans, whom she met after breaking up with Balwani amid the demise of Theranos.
Elizabeth Holmes was hailed as a self-made billionaire in the early 2000s. Her start-up promised a technology for blood tests that would only take a few drops from your finger as a sample. The startup attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and rose to a valuation of $9 billion before critical 2015 Wall Street Journal coverage revealed that the underlying technology wasn’t working. In 2018, fraud charges followed against Holmes and her ex-lover, former company president Sunny Balwani.
Watch the video: Blood test scandal: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty of fraud
Quellen: Associated Press, “The Guardian”
