Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud

Elizabeth Holmes, 38, was once described by Forbes as one of America’s richest self-made billionaires. She was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for fraud. Despite the fact that she is currently pregnant with her second child, glamsquad reports.

 

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On Friday, November 18, a federal judge sentenced the Theranos founder to prison for defrauding investors in her now-defunct blood-testing startup, which was once valued at $9 billion.

 

 

 

Theranos’ founder was worth $4.5 billion at the time and was hailed as a genius on the verge of changing the health sector.

 

 

 

 

She has since been exposed as a fraudster who used false promises to entice Silicon Valley investors, including media mogul Rupert Murdock, to fund her start-up. In 2013, she claimed to have invented a revolutionary blood testing kit that only required a small amount of blood and produced accurate results in as little as 20 minutes. Her company quickly gained worldwide attention.

 

 

According to prosecutors in her trial, it was all lies, and her company was a hoax used to defraud investors. Some investors reported her to the FBI after she failed to show them what their money had been used for.

 

 

 

She was arrested for fraud after a thorough investigation. Her attorneys argued that she deserved only 18 months in prison, but the prosecution argued that her arrogance and refusal to admit wrongdoing throughout the trial deserved 15 years.

 

 

 

 

The judge agreed and sentenced her to 11 years in prison, as well as $121 million in restitution to investors.

 

Davila called the case “troubling on so many levels” before handing down the sentence, questioning what motivated Holmes, a “brilliant” entrepreneur, to misrepresent her company to investors.

 

 

 

“This is a fraud case in which an exciting venture with great expectations was dashed by untruths, misrepresentations, plain hubris, and lies,” the judge said.

 

 

 

 

After the sentence was handed down, Holmes, dressed in a dark blouse and black skirt, hugged her parents and her partner.

 

 

 

 

 

During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Holmes misrepresented Theranos’ technology and finances, including claiming that its miniaturized blood testing machine could run a variety of tests from a few drops of blood. Prosecutors claimed that the company secretly relied on conventional machines from other companies to run patients’ tests.

 

 

 

Holmes testified in her own defense, stating that she thought her statements were correct at the time.

 

 

 

She was convicted on four counts but acquitted on four other counts alleging she defrauded Theranos patients who paid for tests.

 

 

 

Theranos Inc promised to transform how patients receive diagnoses by replacing traditional labs with small machines designed for use in homes, pharmacies, and even on the battlefield.

 

 

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In 2014, Forbes named Holmes the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire at the age of 30, and her stake in Theranos was valued at $4.5 billion. Theranos went bankrupt after a series of Wall Street Journal articles questioned its technology in 2015.

 

 

 

Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in the limited series “The Dropout,” won an Emmy Award in September.

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