CNN —
Elizabeth Holmes’ last-minute bid to avoid prison was rejected by an appeals court on Tuesday, paving the way for the disgraced Theranos founder to begin her sentence.
In a separate ruling Tuesday, Holmes was also ordered to pay $452 million to those harmed by his crimes, including Theranos investors such as media titan Rupert Murdoch.
Holmes was previously ordered into self-custody and to start an 11-year prison sentence on April 27 after pleading guilty to multiple counts of defrauding investors last January.
Days before she was to begin her prison term, Holmes filed a last-minute appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to remain free on bail while she fought to have her sentence overturned.
In Tuesday’s filing, the Ninth Circuit Court denied her request to remain free on bail pending her appeal. A new prison surrender date for Holmes has not yet been set.
Also on Tuesday, District Judge Edward Davila ordered Holmes and her ex-boyfriend and former Theranos COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to pay nearly $452 million in restitution to the victims of their crimes. “Holmes and Balwani” will be jointly and severally liable for this amount, Davila wrote in the filing, meaning each could be individually liable for the entire amount.
Balwani was charged with Holmes and convicted of fraud in a separate trial. He reported to prison last month to serve his nearly 13-year sentence, after losing a last-minute appeal similar to Holmes.
Holmes dropped out of Stanford at age 19 to focus full-time on Theranos, the health tech startup that claims to have invented technology that can accurately test for a number of conditions using just a few drops of blood. Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors and at its peak was valued at nearly $9 billion – making Holmes a paper billionaire.
The company began to disclose after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 that Theranos had performed only a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary technology, and even that was questionable. Accurate ones too. It was also revealed that Theranos relied on third-party equipment manufactured from traditional blood testing companies, rather than its own technology.
Source: www.cnn.com
