Elizabeth Holmes briefly delays prison term with last-minute appeal
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 18: Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on November 18, 2022 in San Jose, California. Holmes appeared in federal court for sentencing after being convicted of four counts of fraud for allegedly engaging in a multimill
Elizabeth Holmes briefly delayed her self-surrender date for federal prison – originally set for Thursday – by filing a last-minute appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The disgraced Theranos’ founder’s attorneys filed the appeal late Tuesday, meaning Holmes will remain free for the time being.
Her co-conspirator in the federal fraud case, Sunny Balwani, filed a similar appeal prior to his self-surrender date, granting him only a few weeks of freedom.
Earlier this month he began serving his 13-year sentence at Terminal Island federal prison outside Los Angeles.
Earlier this month, a federal judge denied Holmes’ efforts to stay out of prison while she appeals her convictions of fraud and conspiracy for bilking investors in her bogus blood-testing technology.
A jury convicted the 39-year-old in January.
She was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison in November. Holmes has had two children since being indicted in 2018, the second born after she was sentenced.
Judge Edward Davila has recommended that Holmes serve her sentence at the minimum security federal prison camp at Bryan, Texas. The prison is roughly 100 miles from her childhood home of Houston.
Before her technology was exposed by company whistleblowers, Holmes positioned herself as a Steve-Jobs-esq tech guru who sought to disrupt the blood testing industry.
She claimed her Edison blood testing machines could perform hundreds of commercially available tests with only a few drops of blood when they could not.
Evan Sernoffsky is an investigative reporter for KTVU. Email Evan at evan.sernoffsky@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @EvanSernoffsky