Elizabeth Holmes’ Delayed Fraud Sentence
By now, you’ve probably heard of Elizabeth Holmes and/or the Hulu show based on her life, The Dropout. She has been found guilty of four counts of fraud, but the sentencing has been pushed to January due to some federal misconduct allegations.
In 2004, Holmes voluntarily left ivy league school Stanford to pursue her business venture, Theranos. Her product was said to offer people extensive blood tests that they can do from home, by simply pricking their fingers. This piqued the interest of many investors, and Holmes managed to get a total $945 million backing her business.
However, in 2015, the Wall Street Journal published a report alleging that the technology behind Theranos couldn’t do what Holmes claimed it could. Soon after this, Holmes was accused of being deceptive towards investors in order to get money from them.
She was found guilty of four fraud charges in January, and her then-boyfriend Sunny Balwani was convicted of twelve charges in July; two counts of conspiracy and ten counts of wire fraud. Holmes’ hearing was supposed to take place on October 17, but has now been pushed back after a key witness communicated that he had some remorse about the testimony he gave.
According to CNN, Theranos ex-lab director, Adam Rosendorff, talked with Holmes’ husband Billy Evans, who proceeded to recount the conversation to Holmes’ team of lawyers. In his email to Holmes’ legal team, Evans wrote that Rosendorff “said when he was called as a witness he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everybody look bad,” along with saying that he “felt like he had done something wrong.”
Because of this, Holmes and her team have requested a new trial. U.S. Judge Edward Davila has said, “the allegation is the possibility that the government may have engaged in misconduct. The court takes that very seriously.”
A specific date has not been released but Davila did say it may be delayed as far as January of next year. Holmes has been found guilty, and is waiting to be sentenced for her one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of committing wire fraud.
Each of these counts has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, though she may be able to serve time for each sentence at once. When Holmes was found guilty on January 3, U.S. Attorney said, “I thank the jurors for their thoughtful and determined service that ensured verdicts could be reached,” along with saying that Holmes will be held accountable for her part in the “large scale investor fraud.”
