She was praised for years as a tech pioneer, on Friday the former start-up star, the American blood test entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, was sentenced to about eleven years in prison for fraud. A federal judge in San Jose, California, sentenced the founder of biotech company Theranos on Friday. The pregnant 38-year-old does not have to start her prison sentence before April 27 next year.
Holmes wanted to revolutionize the pharmaceutical and health care industry with her blood testing company – but the promise turned out to be a bluff. The former American model entrepreneur was found guilty of fraud by a jury in January. The jury found that she lured investors to invest in her company with deliberately false claims about Theranos technology.
Holmes plans to appeal the verdict
The punishment is a hard blow to Holmes. Her lawyers had ruled for up to 18 months in prison and further advocated house arrest and community hours as punishment. The public prosecutor had demanded a prison sentence of at least 15 years. Under the law, Holmes could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. According to American media, she has already announced that she will appeal against the verdict.
The Holmes trial, which once made the front pages of US business magazines as a great hope for innovation in the tech stronghold of Silicon Valley, caused a stir in the United States. The ex-business star’s rise and fall has been covered in podcasts and filmed in the TV series The Dropout. Holmes always denied the fraud allegations and assured that she genuinely believed in Theranos technology.
She also blamed her ex-boyfriend and former business partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani for the scandal. He was also found guilty of fraud in July. The verdict is still pending. Judge Davila said her failure to plead guilty put her at a disadvantage in determining her sentence.
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 when he was just 19 years old. The company promoted a supposedly revolutionary technology for particularly fast, effective and cheap blood tests. Holmes became a billionaire through Theranos, at times the company was valued at around nine billion dollars. For years, the charismatic young entrepreneur has been celebrated as a tech pioneer. She won financially strong investors and prominent supporters such as ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Newspaper exposes scam in 2015
However, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal in 2015 found that their blood testing devices didn’t work at all. Although Holmes stubbornly denied all allegations at first, her house of cards continued to shatter. A series of other investigative articles eventually revealed the alleged success story to be a hoax. In fact, Theranos’ supposed innovations didn’t work, instead the company apparently secretly used conventional testing methods. Allegations of fraud followed in 2018.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
