Global Courant 2023-05-17 05:39:45
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes appears headed for jail soon after an appeals court on Tuesday rejected her request to remain free as she attempts to overthrow her conviction in a blood test hoax that brought her fleeting fame and fortune.
The ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals comes almost three weeks later Holmes deployed a last-minute legal maneuver to delay the start of her 11-year sentence. She had previously been ordered to surrender to authorities on April 27 by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who sentenced her in November.
Davila will now set a new date for Holmes, 39, to leave her current home in the San Diego area and report to jail.
The sentence will separate Holmes from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, their 1-year-old son, William, and 3-month-old daughter, Invicta. Holmes’ pregnancy with Invicta – Latin for “invincible” or “undefeated” – began after a jury convicted her in January 2022 of four counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Davila recommended that Holmes serve her sentence at a women’s prison in Bryan, Texas. It has not been disclosed whether the federal Bureau of Prisons accepted Davila’s recommendation or reassigned Holmes to another facility.
Holmes’ former lover and top lieutenant at Theranos, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, began an almost 13 years in prison in April after his convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy last July in a separate process. Balwani, 57, was imprisoned in a Southern California jail after losing a similar bail attempt while appealing his conviction.
The verdict against Holmes came after a 46-day trial of testimony and other evidence that shed a spotlight on a culture of greed and hubris that infected Silicon Valley as technology took on a more pervasive impact on society and the economy over the past 20 years.
The most riveting moments of the trial unfolded as Holmes took the witness stand to testify in her own defense.
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In addition to telling how she founded Theranos as a teenager after dropping out of Stanford University in 2003, Holmes accused Balwani of molesting her emotionally and sexually. She also claimed that she always believed Theranos would revolutionize healthcare with a technology that she promised could scan hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood.
Pursuing that bold ambition, Holmes raised nearly $1 billion from a list of wealthy investors, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Those sophisticated investors all lost their money after an investigation by the Wall Street Journal and regulatory audits revealed dangerous flaws in Theranos’ technology.
Holmes’ attorneys have challenged her conviction on the grounds of alleged wrongdoing and misconduct at her trial. They have also argued that errors and abuses biasing the jury were so egregious that she should be allowed to stay out of jail while the appeals process unfolds — a request that has now been denied by both Davila and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
