Elizabeth Holmes was once seen as a Silicon Valley star with her startup Theranos, a blood-testing company. Now, she has been sentenced to over 11 years in prison because she was convicted of fraud earlier this year.
Elizabeth Holmes Says She Regrets Her Failings 'With Every Cell' of Her Body
According to the story by NPR, Holmes told the US District Judge Edward Davila that there were many things she would have done differently if she had the chance. She noted that she regrets her failings "with every cell" of her body.
She stated the District Judge before he handed down the sentence in a San Jose, California federal courthouse. The defense lawyers of Holmes hoped for a shorter sentence in prison or at least home confinement.
Holmes is Pregnant with Her Second Child and Will Go to Prison in April
As noted by E Tonight, Holmes, now 38, is pregnant with her second child and is expected to report to prison in April. After her release, she will still spend time under legal supervision for a span of three years.
Judge Davila said that the tragedy of the case is that "Ms. Holmes is brilliant." He still noted that she was motivated by avarice and greed to make investors believe that her company could do more than she thought possible.
Prosecutors Wanted to Argue for Holmes to be Locked Behind Bars for 15 Years
Prosecutors wanted to argue for 15 years behind bars, as per Reuters, due to the financial loss and that there was a need to deter future fraudulent schemes in the tech industry. She was also convicted by a jury in January on four wire fraud-related counts for her role in deceiving investors regarding a groundbreaking tech capable of scanning for hundreds of conditions through just a few drops of blood.
This is a feature that lab scientists worldwide have been trying to accomplish for a long time. Holmes, a Stanford dropout, said that she was able to perfect it.
Holmes Came Up with a Whopping $1 Billion Investment
She was able to come up with about $1 billion in investment based on the premise that her devices, which were proprietary blood testing, would be able to revolutionize health care. Prosecutors argued that Holmes "fudged test results" during the trial.
It was also shared that she flagrantly lied regarding the capabilities of her tests and even tried to cover the scheme up when whistleblowers and journalists started to draw scrutiny to what was happening at the company.
The article by NPR says that it is almost unheard of for an executive in Silicon Valley to face criminal prosecutions when a business collapses. However, legal experts note that the egregiousness of the crimes by Holmes, and the fact that she was operating in the healthcare world, which was highly regulated, made the Theranos case "exceptional."
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Written by Urian B.
