Photo: Philip Pacheco/Getty
Elizabeth Holmeshasfiled an appealof her Jan. 2022 conviction, claiming the conviction was unjust and that prosecutors “parroted the public narrative” that Holmes knowingly deceived investors about her blood-testing company Theranos.
In January the 39-year-old mother of twowas sentenced to 11 years in prison.
She is expected toturn herself in to federal authoritieson April 27.
She laterasked a judge to let her stay out of prisonwhile she fights the conviction, a request the judge rejected.
On Monday, a little more than a week before Holmes is set to turn herself in, she and her attorneys filed a132-page appealasking for a reduction in her sentence,NBC Newsreports.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
In the appeal, they argue that she did not intend to deceive investors.
Holmes was then indicted in 2018 for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
“The government’s case largely parroted the public narrative,” the appeal says. “The government put front and center the claim that Holmes knowingly and intentionally misrepresented to investors the capabilities of Theranos’s technology.”
“The reality differed significantly from the narrative,” it says.
“Highly-credentialed” scientists and “outsiders” who reviewed the technology told Holmes it worked.
Theranos also received many patents, it says.
“And in 2015 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved an assay on Theranos' proprietary technology,” it says.
Prosecutors Accused Holmes of Trying to Flee to Mexico
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila rejected Holmes' request to allow her to stay out of prison while her appeal process plays out, according toThe Washington Post,ABC News, andThe Wall Street Journal.
Davila wrote in his decision, according toThe Washington Post,that Holmes isn’t a flight risk or danger to the community. However, the court could not “find that she has raised a ‘substantial question of law or fact’ that if ‘determined favorably to [her] on appeal’” would reverse her conviction or get her a new trial.
The ruling came after Davila also denied a petition from Holmes' ex and Theranos President COO Sunny Balwani. He wassentenced to 13 yearsafter he wasfound guilty on all 12 fraud chargesagainst him.
Balwani was originally scheduled to begin his sentence in mid-March, butdid not surrender to authoritiesbecause he was appealing his conviction. Still, his appeal has since been denied, so he will begin his sentence at Terminal Island prison in California on April 20, ABC News reported.
Just after her conviction in January, Holmes was accused of buying a one-way ticket to Mexico in analleged effort to flee the country.
Prosecutors stated in court documents at the time that she should go to prison right away becauseshe is a flight riskand made “an attempt to flee the country” last year, per multiple outlets.
“The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that Defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip,” prosecutors allege in the filing. “Only after the government raised this unauthorized flight with defense counsel was the trip canceled.”
Prosecutors said in court documents they expected Holmes to “reply that she did not in fact leave the country as scheduled”, however, they added “it is difficult to know with certainty” if she would have left without the government stepping in.
They also said that “the incentive to flee has never been higher” and she “has the means to act on that incentive.”
Holmes' lawyers said in an email that she booked the flight before her conviction and planned to attend a friend’s wedding in Mexico if she wasn’t found guilty.
For now, Holmes resides in a $13,000 per month estate.
Ahead of her sentence, Holmesgave birth to her second child, according to a federal court document. It’s unclear when exactly the birth occurred.
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David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Holmes was tried on 11 counts of fraud for claims made to investors and patients of her Silicon Valley company. The jury found Holmes guilty of four of the charges — three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Holmes was found not guilty of an additional four counts. The jury remained deadlocked on the other three charges, according toThe New York Times.
Her scandal was the subject ofan HBO documentaryas well asa Hulu miniseriesstarringAmanda Seyfried.
source: people.com
