Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has again delayed the start of her 11-year prison sentence for fraud, after appealing a previous ruling that would have forced her to surrender on April 27.
Lawyers for Holmes, who is currently out on bail, told U.S. District Judge Edward Davila on Wednesday that she will not report to jail as scheduled because she is appealing Davila’s decision to remain in custody while it is determined whether she should get a new trial.
Holmes, 39, was to serve his sentence in a minimum-security prison camp in Houston, Texas. The appeal automatically delays her reporting date and she will now remain out of jail until an appeals court rules on her claim.
The disgraced entrepreneur was found guilty in January 2022 of four counts of fraud for his role in deceiving investors running the bankrupt blood testing firm. Citing her two young children, Holmes’ lawyers said she was unlikely to pose a flight risk and should be allowed to remain free pending the appeal process. Davila had spoken out against a postponement of the prison sentence, saying a new trial or overturning the guilty verdict was unlikely.
Holmes filed his appeal in September and seeks a new trial based on alleged wrongdoing by the prosecution, as well as a key government witness who regret expressed for his testimony and his role in his conviction. The witness, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, later confirmed that he stood by his testimony.
Holmes has had two children since she was indicted in 2018. Throughout the trial and as she waited for the deadline to turn herself in this week, Holmes lived with her partner and the father of her children, hotel heir Billy Evans, in a $135 million estate in Silicon Valley.
His former business and romantic partner Sunny Balwani employee a similar strategy to avoid his own prison sentence, delaying his start date by a month while an appeal was considered.
His appeal was dismissed and he started his sentence on similar counts of fraud last week. Balwani, who was found guilty of the 12 charges he was charged with, will serve 13 years.
Holmes’ impending prison sentence marks the end of the dramatic story of Theranos – a company she founded after dropping out of Stanford University at age 19 in 2003.
The company has promised groundbreaking new technology capable of performing hundreds of health tests on a single drop of blood, and was once valued at more than $9 billion as it attracted big-name backers like the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
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Theranos’ implosion began after articles in the Wall Street Journal in 2015 revealed that the company’s core technology was not working as advertised and that many tests were being performed at outside labs using traditional methodology. .
Holmes was eventually found guilty of four counts of defrauding investors, in a dramatic trial that included testimony from some of the most high-profile backers, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis .
The Associated Press contributed reporting