Theranos founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, has been sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison following her conviction in January for defrauding investors about the potential of her company's blood-testing device, according to Variety.
Elizabeth Holmes Says She Regrets Her Failings
In San Jose, California, US District Judge Edward Davila imposed the sentence along with another three years of supervised release.
The sentencing was announced last Friday after a hearing that lasted for over four hours. After hearing her sentence, Holmes tearfully hugged her family.
Restitution will be set afterwards, according to CNN. The judge ordered Holmes to turn herself into custody on April 27, 2023.
Holmes was convicted last January following a trial that lasted for three months. She was sentenced to over 11 years of imprisonment because of three counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to The Verge.
She is facing up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 in addition to restitution for each count of fraud, according to CNN.
The defense team had urged the judge to sentence her to up to 18 months of incarceration followed by probation and community service.
However, the prosecution had recommended a sentence of 15 years in prison, as well as probation and restitution. Meanwhile, Holmes' probation officer requested a nine-year term.
A tearful Holmes spoke to the court before the sentencing, saying that she loved Theranos because it was her life's work. She said that she was devastated by her failings.
Likewise, she apologized to the employees, investors, and patients of the company. She said she regrets all of her failings.
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Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
Holmes is a former biotechnology entrepreneur. She led Theranos, a company that promised to revolutionize the medical industry.
Her company claimed that they can run 240 tests on a single drop of blood, whereas traditional tests required much larger samples.
However, it turned out that the company's technology didn't work. Moreover, it gave patients inaccurate results.
In 2003, Holmes started her company, Theranos, when she was just 19. Eventually, she dropped out of Stanford University to pursue the company full-time.
She eventually started courting the press with claims that her company had invented a new blood-testing technology
With Holmes' claims, Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors. Among those who invested were media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Walmart's Walton family, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and the billionaire family of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
During its peak, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. This makes Holmes a billionaire on paper.
Kevin Downey, one of Holmes' lawyers argued that unlike other defendants in corporate fraud cases, the Theranos' founder used the money to build medical technology, and not on greedy pursuits.
However, federal prosecutor Jeffrey Schenk pointed out that even if the defendant did not make financial gains, she obtained fame, admiration, and a lifestyle from the fraud.
In announcing Holmes' sentence, Davila cited texts between Holmes and Sunny Balwani, former chief operating officer and president of Theranos, as pieces of evidence that Holmes indeed conspired to defraud investors.
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