Update: A California judge ordered Elizabeth Holmes to report to prison by the end of this month. The former Theranos CEO lost her bid to remain free while appealing her conviction.
In January 2022, a California jury convicted the 39-year-old of defrauding investors out of nearly $1 billion by convincing them to invest in a blood testing machine that didn’t work.
In November 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to her victims.
On Tuesday Judge Davila set a date of May 30 for Holmes to surrender to an unnamed federal prison outside of California.
She was originally ordered to surrender on April 27.
Holmes’ attorneys requested the surrender date of May 30 so she could arrange for the care of her 2 children, 1-year-old son William and 3-month-old daughter Invicta.
Holmes spent Mother’s Day with her children at her home in the San Diego area. Both children were fathered by hotel heir Billy Evans.
Holmes was a teenager when she founded Theranos, a blood testing startup company in Silicon Valley. Prosecutors say she lured investors with false data that her innovative Edison laboratory machines could run hundreds of blood tests from a single drop of blood.
In 2014 Holmes was featured on the cover of FORBES magazine as one of the richest people in America.
At 32, she was the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Her share of the company stock was worth more than $4.5 billion.
But by October 2016, Holmes’ net worth fell from $4.5 billion to $0 after the SEC began investigating her startup.
In March 2018 the SEC charged Holmes and Theranos’s former president, Ramesh Balwani, with defrauding investors of more than $700 million while advertising a false product.
Prior to Holmes’s sentencing hearing, the judge received 130 letters from her family and friends, including Senator Cory Booker. Most of the letters pleaded for mercy for Holmes.
One of those letters was from Holmes’ own aunt who said she invested part of her life savings in Theranos and her niece should serve time in prison.
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