Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is now serving time in federal prison and is appealing her sentence. Holmes was once a tech legend in Silicon Valley, and her company, Theranos, was at its peak with a value of over $9 billion. Then, in 2015, a Wall Street Journal investigation report brought Holmes’ seemingly limitless success to an end. Hulu’s drama series The Dropout is based on the case against Holmes and Theranos.
In 2018, federal prosecutors charged Elizabeth Holmes with running a multimillion-dollar scheme through Theranos. They alleged that the then-CEO and her partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, defrauded investors, doctors, and patients. Holmes stood trial, which resulted in a conviction in 2022. She received 11 years and three months in prison. Her potential release date now shows a reduction of about two years in the sentence. Prosecutors tried Balwani separately, which ended with a conviction. After this, he received a 13-year prison sentence.
HBO’s acclaimed documentary on Elizabeth Holmes, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, also chronicles the case.
Which prison is housing Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes now?
According to CNN and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is now in Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security prison in southern Texas. Records show her possible release date to be August 1, 2032. Her scheduled early release comes partly because of her good behavior.
Elizabeth Holmes is now appealing her fraud conviction, two years after a jury found her guilty of running a blood-testing scheme. Holmes became popular for dropping out of Standford in 2004 to begin her start-up, Theranos. She later garnered notoriety for using the same start-up to run the multimillion-dollar scheme alongside her partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
The outlet stated that a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigation exposed the fraud. It revealed that Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos conducted only a dozen of the hundreds of tests using its revolutionary technology. She and her former partner/lover then attempted to hide the company’s shortcomings, defrauding investors, doctors, and patients.
Per AP News, Holmes had claimed that her company’s devices would use only a few drops of human blood to scan for potential diseases. These Theranos-made devices produced inaccurate and questionable results, something Holmes and Balwani tried to hide. Moreover, the investigation revealed that the company relied on third-party manufactured devices from traditional blood testing companies, contrary to the claims of using their technology.
Elizabeth Holmes’ lawyers reportedly presented her appeal in court on June 11, 2024. In their appeal, they argued that the court violated evidentiary rules regarding the prosecution’s key witness. Meanwhile, Holmes’ former partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, is also trying to overturn his nearly 13-year prison sentence. He is currently serving time at a Southern California federal facility.
