Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes arrives to begin serving a prison sentence for defrauding investors Photo: REUTERS/Go Nakamura
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes begins her 11-year prison sentence in Texas for defrauding investors of millions, ending one of the biggest scandals in Silicon Valley history.
Holmes, who was found guilty of four counts of fraud and conspiracy in 2022 was admitted to the maximum security women's prison in Bryan, Texas on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, a mother-of-two was denied a request by a judge to remain free while she appealed her 11-year prison sentence for fraud. Holmes, 39, says her initial trial was unfair.
Prisoners await the arrival of the disgraced tech founder at a prison about 100 miles northwest of Houston, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Some people say, 'I want to be her friend,'” Tasha Wade, a current prisoner, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal. “But other people are like, 'I can't believe that's all she got for taking all that money,'” Wade said.
Holmes founded Theranos when she was 19 years old. Photo: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Copy ' The book Bad Blood, which tells the story of a disgraced tech founder, was reportedly discovered earlier this year in the prison library.
Holmes, once compared to Steve Jobs, was the youngest billionaire in Forbes magazine history who made themselves. 2015.
Theranos, which Holmes founded when she was 19, was once one of Silicon Valley's most celebrated startups and was valued at more than $9 billion at its peak.
Silicon-based blood testing company The valley boasts a number of high-profile investors and directors, including Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger.
The biotech company promised to provide revolutionary technology that would detect hundreds of diseases and other ailments with just a few drops of blood, but this turned out to be false.
A series of Wall Street Journal reports have exposed how bosses secretly sent blood samples to traditional labs instead of using Theranos branded blood testing machines.
Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the scandal.
Holmes in 2015 with then Vice President Joe Biden. Photo: Anda Chu/MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty ImagesIn a separate trial, Sunny Balwani, co-founder of Theranos and ex-boyfriend of Holmes, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison in 2022. Balwani has already served his time in prison in Southern California.
Earlier this month, a judge ordered Holmes and her co-founder Theranos to pay Mr Murdoch $125m (£100m) in damages for their crime .
Mr. Murdoch, 92, invested $100 million in the company between 2014 and 2015 as its valuation and prominence skyrocketed.
The amount Holmes and Balwani were ordered to pay Mr. Murdoch, the largest piece of the restitution order.
Holmes and Balwani's lawyers have previously argued that the couple has very little money and it's unclear if they can ever pay back the full $425 million.
In her first interview since scandal erupted in 2016. Holmes told the New York Times earlier this year that she was “playing a character she created herself.”
She said take it seriously, not like a little girl or a girl who doesn't have good technical ideas.”< /p>
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