The former billionaire has been found guilty and sentenced after it was revealed that her blood testing company failed to make the breakthroughs it claimed.
Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of disgraced blood testing company Theranos, has been found guilty of three counts of wire fraud, as well as one count of conspiracy to commit fraud with her co-founder Sunny Balwani.
On November 18, 2022, she was sentenced to 135 months, or approximately 11 and a half years, in prison for defrauding 10 victims of $121 million. She is appealing the ruling. However, a judge has ruled that she must serve her sentence on May 30, 2023 and that she and Balwani owe the victims of their fraud $452 million.
Theranos was once valued at $9 billion, and Holmes was a Silicon Valley darling, wearing black turtlenecks that evoked comparisons to Steve Jobs.
That changed after John Carreyrou’s revelation was published in The Wall Street Journal. In that article, Carreyrou wrote that Theranos only used its own device for a handful of tests and that other employees were concerned that the device was not accurate.
When it turned out that Theranos labs were not up to par, the partnerships with Safeway and Walgreens fell apart. Also, Theranos has thrown away two years worth of test results. Ultimately, Holmes was banned from operating labs and Theranos disbanded in 2018.