SAN FRANCISCO (dpa-AFX) – The former star entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, convicted of fraud, is scheduled to begin her more than eleven-year sentence at the end of May. The responsible judge in California set the date for the afternoon of May 30 on Wednesday. An appeals court had previously dismissed her application to suspend her incarceration pending the completion of the appeals process.
Holmes was the founder and CEO of the start-up Theranos, with which she promised to revolutionize blood tests. With Theranos, only a few drops of blood are said to be sufficient for complex tests. Holmes was celebrated, Theranos reached a valuation of nine billion dollars in financing rounds. But then it turned out that the technology didn’t work. Holmes and her top manager Ramesh Balwani were convicted of allegedly deceiving investors.
Originally, Holmes, who gave birth to two children during the trial, was due to start serving her 11-year, three-month sentence at the end of April. But with her application to suspend the start of detention for the duration of the appeal, this timetable was overturned. On Tuesday, Judge Edward Davila set the amount owed by Holmes and Balwani to investors at just over $452 million. Balwani has already started his 13-year sentence./so/DP/ngu