On Friday, US prosecutors recommended that Elizabeth Holmes, who was a founder of Theranos, should receive imprisonment of 15 years and should pay restitution to investors of around $800 million because of defrauding the blood testing startup.
“Considering the extensiveness of Holmes’ fraud … the sentencing of 180 months’ imprisonment would reflect the seriousness of the offences, provide for just punishment for the offences, and deter Holmes and others,” the prosecutors said.
Earlier, Holmes urged the US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California not to send her to lockup.
A jury sentenced the 38-year-old on four grounds of wire fraud and conspiracy in January. Each ground carries a maximum of a 20-year prison period. Any sentence would likely be served together.
According to prosecutors, she tricked the investors by promising Theranos Inc’s technology could operate many tests on one drop of blood from a finger prick from 2010 to 2015.
On Monday, the magistrate rejected her pleas for a new trial, including over a claim a key prosecution bystander visited her at her residence and made statements that damaged his testimony.
Her lawyer argued that she has already become a “caricature to be mocked and vilified” and a prison punishment would be extreme for her.
Holmes established Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19. The business was once valued at $US9 billion, and Forbes magazine put Holmes’ net cost at $US4.5 billion in 2015.
Theranos crumpled after the Wall Street Journal published a series of papers, starting in 2015, indicating that her company’s devices were flawed and inaccurate.
She will be punished by next week.
Who is Elizabeth Anne Holmes?
Elizabeth Anne Holmes is a former biotechnologist entrepreneur who is based in Washington, U.S. She was the founder and CEO of Theranos, which claimed to be a breakthrough health technology that promised revolutionary blood tests. The Company was founded by her when she was 19 years old. The company got funding of more than $700 million from many venture tycoons and private investors, resulting in a $10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 that made her “world’s youngest self-made female billionaire”.
After all this success, her technology didn’t work and customers started receiving wrong diagnoses. Investors lost their invested money. It was revealed that all that the company claimed to be was a big lie and the investors were fooled into a Fraud Scandal.
The case is coming to an end with her receiving imprisonment for a maximum of 20 years.
