Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison for 11-year sentence for Theranos fraud

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former CEO of the now-defunct company Theranos, has reported to prison to begin her 11-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy stemming from false claims she made about her company’s technology. 

Holmes turned herself in Tuesday to a low-security, women’s prison in Bryan, Texas, more than a year after she was convicted on three felony counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She received her sentence in November and had been ordered to turn herself in by Tuesday. 

Video from The Recount showed Holmes walking toward the prison to turn herself in. 

Having dropped out from Stanford University at 19 years old, Holmes founded the blood-testing company Theranos and advertised it to the public and potential investors as having technology that could test patients for a wide range of diseases and conditions with only a few drops of blood from a prick of a finger. 

Holmes’s advertising helped the company bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and high-profile board members including former Cabinet members Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. 

She was at times considered to be the next Steve Jobs, but a series of articles from The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company’s technology did not work. Holmes did not inform investors of the defects with Theranos’s technology. 

Former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was in a relationship with Holmes for more than a decade and served as the company’s chief operating officer, was convicted in July of 12 felony charges for defrauding investors and patients based on the false claims about the abilities of the technology. 

Balwani began serving a nearly 13-year prison sentence in Southern California in April. 

Holmes has been living in the San Diego area with her son, daughter and their father. Her son was born in July 2021, a few weeks before her trial began, and her daughter was born in February. 

Holmes has admitted to making mistakes with the company but denied committing any crimes. 

The Associated Press contributed.