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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, now a mother of two, is asking to delay her 11-year sentence for felony fraud so she can be at home with her two young children while she appeals the conviction.
In November 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 135 months in prison for defrauding investors in the failed Silicon Valley startup that sought to revolutionize blood testing. At the time, Holmes, 39, was a mother of a one-year-old son and pregnant with another child.
She now has “two very young children … her toddler and an infant,” according to a recent court filing. The request for Holmes to remain free impending an appeal, filed Feb. 23 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, did not say when Holmes had her second baby.
The motion for release said that Holmes is not a flight risk and “is highly motivated to continue complying with her conditions of release so that she can work with her lawyers while she pursues her appeal.”
When he sentenced Holmes, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila pushed to April 27 her report date to a prison in Byron, Texas, so she could give birth to her second child before being incarcerated.
A March 17 hearing is scheduled on her request to stay out of prison during her appeal.
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Feds argue Elizabeth Holmes is a flight risk
In court documents, federal prosecutors have said Holmes is a flight risk. They cite a one-way plane ticket to Mexico she booked for Jan. 26, 2022, three weeks after her conviction on four counts of fraud and conspiracy. Holmes only canceled the trip after prosecutors contacted Holmes’ attorneys about the “unauthorized flight,” prosecutors said.
Holmes said in the recent court filing, she had planned to attend a wedding of close friends in Mexico and the ticket was canceled immediately when the government raised the issue.
Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to start the medical diagnostics company in 2003. Theranos’ mission: a blood test requiring only a pinprick of blood, enough to run dozens of medical tests on the startup’s hi-tech machines.
The company grew to be worth more than $9 billion, employing more than 800 employees – attracting investors such as Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle; Rupert Murdoch, billionaire media mogul; and the Walton family, who founded Walmart.
But indictments said Holmes and her colleague and former romantic partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, lied about the technology, the company’s finances, and its partnerships with the Department of Defense and Walgreens.
Balwani, who was convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison, is also seeking to remain free amid an appeal.
Holmes was found guilty on four felony fraud counts associated with a loss to victims of at least $120 million. Total losses surpassed $800 million, prosecutors said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.
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