Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to more than 11 years for fraud, conspiracy convictions
Elizabeth Holmes #ElizabethHolmes
A California judge has sentenced Elizabeth Holmes to more than 11 years in prison for multiple counts of fraud.
In court on Friday, prosecutors asked for a 15-year prison term, as well as restitution and a lengthy probation after her release. Holmes’ probation officer pushed for a nine-year term.
Holmes’ defense team, however, asked Judge Edward Davila to sentence her to just 18 months of incarceration followed by probation and community service.
More than 100 people — including Senator Cory Booker — had written letters to the judge, pleading for leniency in Holmes’ sentencing.
In the end, judge Davila ruled that Holmes would spend 135 months in a federal prison. She will then serve 3 years of supervised release.
Holmes, the subject of an HBO documentary as well as a Hulu miniseries starring Amanda Seyfried, has been awaiting her fate since her conviction in January.
She was tried on 11 counts of fraud for claims made to investors and patients of her Silicon Valley blood-testing company, Theranos. The jury found Holmes guilty of four of the charges — three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Holmes was found not guilty of an additional four counts. The jury remained deadlocked on the other three charges, according to The New York Times.
RELATED: Former Theranos CEO Sunny Balwani Found Guilty on All 12 Fraud Charges Against Him
Holmes first rose to prominence in 2014 as the founder and CEO of healthcare start-up Theranos, which duped investors out of millions by falsely purporting that its technology could run hundreds of medical tests using just a few drops of blood.
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In 2015, Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou reported that the machine Holmes was selling — dubbed The Edison — did not actually work, and that the company was using outside technology and other subterfuge to fake positive test results. Federal authorities then investigated Holmes, indicting her in 2018.
During her trial, Holmes’ defense attorneys sought to portray her as naïve, saying she didn’t mean to defraud investors. Her attorney, Kevin Downey, told jurors that Holmes never cashed out any stock even as the company’s fortunes tumbled.
RELATED: Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos Founder, Found Guilty of Fraud and Conspiracy
Holmes testified in her own defense, saying her judgment was clouded during the time in question because of the alleged sexual, psychological and emotional abuse she endured during her relationship with former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her ex-boyfriend and co-defendant.
Balwani was convicted of 12 counts of fraud in July. Prosecutors have said he will be sentenced after Holmes is.
But prosecutors said Holmes knew exactly what she was doing.
RELATED: Amanda Seyfried on Challenges of Playing Elizabeth Holmes — And Why She Initially Turned Down Role
“The person on trial is 37 years old,” U.S. Attorney John Bostic said in his closing arguments. “That is certainly old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.”
In addition to accusations she misled to patients and physicians about the efficacy of Theranos’ blood tests, Holmes was also accused of lying to investors in 2015, telling them that Theranos would generate $1 billion in revenue when she allegedly knew the company would only generate a few hundred thousand dollars that year.
Read the original article on People