Elizabeth Holmes: Silicon Valley entrepreneur sentenced to 11 years in prison in the US

The entrepreneur and one-time Silicon Valley star elizabeth holmes was sentenced this Friday to eleven years and three months in prison for having defrauded the investors of her company, Theranos, by assuring that she had developed a revolutionary blood analysis system.

Judge Edward Davila also imposed three years of probation on Holmesonce you leave jail, and a $400 fine.

Look: The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes: the Silicon Valley world of lies and secrets that uncovers the Theranos fraud scandal

The entrepreneur will also have to pay a series of indemnities that will be set in the future.

Holmes was found guilty last January of four counts of fraud against Theranos investors and faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Before the reading of the sentence, in a court in San José, California, Holmes He claimed he loved Theranos.

“It was my life’s work”, he said crying, while acknowledging that he is “devastated” for his failures at the head of the company.

The woman also had words of apologies to Theranos employees, investors and customers: “I’m so sorry. I gave it my all, I had to create the company and save it.” lament.

In pre-ruling arguments, attorney for HolmesKevin Downey, stressed that unlike other defendants in corporate fraud cases, his client did not show greed by spending the money she earned on “yachts and planes”.

Instead, he used the funds “to create medical technology”Downey said.

For his part, federal prosecutor Jeffrey Schenk noted that Holmes he gained fame, admiration and a lifestyle from his fraud, despite no financial gain.

“These are still benefits,” remembered.

Holmes38, started Theranos in 2003 when he was 19 and dropped out of Stanford University to pursue the company full-time.

The young woman rose to fame for claiming that her firm had invented revolutionary technology to carry out reliable and accurate blood tests for various diseases using only a few drops taken from the fingertips, which lowered costs.

This made her a star in Silicon Valley and in the business world in general, to the point that she was compared to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Theranos quickly attracted investor interest due to the great potential of these alleged blood tests and made its founder a multimillionaire at the age of 31.

However, in late 2015 The Wall Street Journal published a series of investigative articles questioning the credibility of Theranos’s tests and accusing the company of, among other things, diluting the blood samples obtained. of patients to increase their volume.

These accusations prompted the US Department of Justice to file charges against Holmes and the former president and former COO of the company, Ramseh “Sunny” Balwani (ex-sentimental partner of Holmes), whom he accused of having misled investors, doctors and patients.

Theranos company was dissolved in September 2018.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.