The discredited founder of the failing blood testing business Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, is due to report to prison on Tuesday, finishing off a dramatic fall.
Last November, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in jail after being convicted months earlier on various counts of defrauding investors while running the now-defunct startup.
Her bid to be released on bond while she battles her conviction was refused earlier this month by an appellate court. The trial judge, Edward Davila, ordered Holmes to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons by May 30 to begin serving her sentence.
Holmes is anticipated to serve her time at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in southern Texas, which is about 100 miles from Houston, where she grew up before moving to California to attend Stanford.
Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos COO, was also convicted of fraud and reported to prison in California last month to begin completing his term.
Elizabeth Holmes: From tech icon to a fraud
Holmes was once a tech icon, serving as a poster child for Silicon Valley’s boundless goals and possibilities. She and Balwani are now among the few tech executives who have been charged and convicted of fraud.
At the age of 19, Holmes dropped out of Stanford to focus full-time on Theranos, a firm that claimed to have devised technology that could accurately screen for a variety of illnesses with only a few drops of blood. Theranos received $945 million from an excellent list of investors and reached a peak valuation of $9 billion, making Holmes a paper billionaire. She appeared on magazine covers and gave public speeches while wearing a black turtleneck that drew analogies to late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Her company began to fall apart after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 revealed that Theranos had only ever completed only a dozen of the hundreds of tests it advertised, and with doubtful accuracy. It was also revealed that Theranos was using third-party-made devices from standard blood testing companies instead of its technology.
Theranos was eventually liquidated in September 2018
Holmes and Balwani were indicted on the same 12 felony offenses nearly five years ago. Their trials were halted after Holmes stated that she intended to charge Balwani of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse throughout their decade-long relationship, which coincided with her tenure as CEO. (Balwani’s lawyers have refuted her allegations.)
Davila ordered Holmes and Balwani to pay $452 million in reparations to victims of their crimes earlier this month.
A weeping Holmes addressed the court in San Jose, California, before her sentence was delivered in November.
“I loved Theranos. It was my life’s work,” she said. “The people I tried to get involved with at Theranos were the people I loved and respected the most. I am devastated by my failings.”
She went on to apologize to Theranos’ employees, investors, and patients.
“I’m so, so sorry. I gave everything I had to build our company and to save our company,” she said. “I regret my failings with every cell in my body.”
