Former start-up company Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a flight risk and should not be allowed to stay out of prison while she appeals her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, US prosecutors said in court documents last week, pointing out that she had booked a one-way ticket to Mexico for 26 January 2022, three weeks after being convicted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy.
In a motion filed last week in a court in California, the prosecutors said she had booked the 2022 flight without a scheduled return trip and cancelled it only after they had contacted her attorneys about the “unauthorised flight”.
Holmes, who headed Theranos during the company’s turbulent 15-year history, was convicted in a scheme that revolved around the firm’s claims to have developed a medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked, and the claims were false, reports the LA Times. She had also duped investors out of millions of dollars.
In an email last year responding to prosecutors’ concerns about the planned trip, her attorneys said she had booked the flight before the jury’s verdict, to attend a wedding in Mexico.
“Given the verdict, she does not plan to take the trip and therefore did not provide notice, seek permission, or request access to her passport (which the government has) for the trip,” wrote one of Holmes’ attorneys.
On 17 November last year, Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to more than 11 years in prison. He ordered Holmes, who is pregnant, to report to prison on 27 April, giving her enough time to give birth to her second child before being incarcerated. She gave birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year.
Holmes is due to return to court on 17 March for a hearing on her request to stay out of prison while she appeals her conviction.
LA Times article – Convicted CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a flight risk, prosecutors say (Open access)
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Theranos: A cautionary tale on how not to commercialise medical advances