She was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison on Friday for defrauding investors about her company's technology and business dealings.
The saga has fascinated the public and sparked debates about Silicon Valley's culture of hype and exaggeration. The start-up she helped raise $945 million for was found guilty in January of four counts of wire fraud for deceiving investors with their claims.
The judge sentenced her to more than 11 years in prison. She will have to report to prison on April 27, 2023.
The federal sentencing guidelines recommend 20 years in prison for wire fraud of that size. Prosecutors wanted 15 years and $804 million in damages for 29 investors, while Ms.Holmes's lawyers wanted 18 months of house arrest.
The correct calculation for investor losses was $121 million according to the judge. Murdoch, a media mogul, and a former Wells Fargo CEO sat on the start-up's board.
The case of Ms.Holmes has taken on a mythic status over the years. She appeared on magazine covers, dined at the White House and hit a paper net worth of $4.5 billion, but she was not the most well-known start-up founder. The story of Ms.Holmes has been told in a number of different ways.
Tech start-ups exaggerate and hype a lot, but very few executives are indicted on fraud charges and sent to prison. The Justice Department wants to be more aggressive in pursuing white-collar criminals.
The founder of an electric vehicle company was found guilty of fraud. The founder of FTX, Sam Bankman- Fried, is under investigation by multiple state and federal agencies.
The prosecutors urged the judge to take into account the message her case sent to the world. They wrote that a long sentence for Ms.Holmes was important to deter future start-up fraud schemes and to rebuild trust in funders.
In court on Friday, Jeffrey Schenk, an assistant U.S. attorney and a lead prosecutor on the case, criticized Ms. He said that it's a logical fallacy to suggest that a start-up fails because it was a start-up. It's not true.
The trust between entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley was destroyed by Ms.Holmes. He said that Ms. Holmes's offense was not a single bad act, but an extended fraud that occurred over a long period of time. The chief executives of Worldcom and Enron both spent more than a decade in prison for their roles in major frauds of the past.
Kevin Downey said in court that there was no evidence of greed because Ms.Holmes never cashed out her Theranos stock. He said that she was not lumped in with executives at Worldcom.
He said that there was a conviction for a crime where the defendants wanted to build technology.
There were more than 100 letters of support from figures including professors, venture capital investors and a senator from New Jersey, which painted her as a victim of circumstance.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons will assign her to a prison based on factors such as location, space and her lack of criminal history. There are minimum security prisons close to Ms.Holmes's residence.
The rise and fall of Ms.Holmes began more than a decade after she dropped out of a university to start her own company. The company struck partnerships with major grocery chains to build test centers and created a machine that could run more than 1,000 tests on a drop of blood. The company's technology was used on the battlefields of Afghanistan.
None of those claims were correct.
The Wall Street Journal exposed the deceptive practices of Theranos. Soon after, the company's lab was shut down. The company was dissolved in the year after Ms. Holmes and her partner were indicted.
The man was found guilty of 12 counts of fraud in a separate trial. She didn't cooperate with prosecutors on his case.
She testified for seven days at her trial. She spoke publicly about what happened at the company. She apologized for her treatment of whistle-blowers and journalists who investigated the company.
She said her exaggerations were simply painting a picture of the future that investors were interested in hearing. She said that they were interested in what kind of change could be made.
She accused Mr. Balwani of emotional and sexual abuse as well as being more than 20 years older than her. He forced her to have sex with him when she didn't want to, she said. Mr. Balwani denied the allegations.
A jury found Ms.Holmes guilty of defrauding three of its largest investors and of conspiring to do so. Ms.Holmes tried to get a new trial. Her motions were denied.
Her friends and family wrote that the public's understanding of her company was false.
The trial of the company has been written about in the media. Elizabeth sacrificed and accomplished innovative things in order to help the company continue.
Kalley gave reporting.
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