Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, has entered a Texas prison where she could serve up to 11 years for her role in a blood-testing scam that became a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of greed and hubris in Silicon Valley.
The 39-year-old, dressed in jeans and a brown sweater, was accompanied by two prison employees as she walked into the federal women’s prison camp in Bryan, Texas. The minimum-security facility, located around 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Houston where she grew up, was recommended by the federal judge who sentenced her in November. Holmes intended to become a technology innovator like Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
As she begins her sentence, Holmes leaves behind two young children, a son born in July 2021 a few weeks before the start of her trial and a 3-month-old daughter conceived after her conviction on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022.
Holmes met the father of her children, William “Billy” Evans, in 2017 as she was under investigation for the Theranos collapse. While building up Theranos, Holmes grew closer to Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her romantic partner, investor, and fellow executive in the startup. Together, they promised to revolutionize healthcare with a technology that could quickly identify diseases and other issues using a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.
The purported breakthrough helped Theranos raise almost $1 billion from investors, construct an influential board of directors that included former Presidential cabinet members, and turn Holmes into a Silicon Valley sensation with a fortune valued at $4.5 billion on paper in 2014. But it all fell apart in a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal that exposed severe and dangerous flaws in Theranos’ technology that Holmes and Balwani attempted to conceal. The company collapsed following the revelations, and Holmes and Balwani were charged by the US Justice Department with a litany of white-collar crimes in 2018.
Holmes admitted to making errors at Theranos but denied committing any offenses during her trial. During seven days of captivating testimony on the witness stand, she spoke about being sexually and emotionally abused by Balwani, who controlled her thinking. Balwani’s attorney denied Holmes’ allegations, which was one of the key reasons they were tried separately. Balwani was convicted on 12 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy in a trial that began two months after Holmes’ concluded. He is currently serving a nearly 13-year sentence in a Southern California prison.
Holmes sought to remain free while she appeals her conviction, claiming that she was unfairly treated during the trial. However, both US District Judge Edward Davila, who presided over her trial, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her bid, leaving her no choice but to go to jail nearly two decades after she founded Theranos.
FPC Bryan, a minimum-security prison camp, houses nearly 650 women, including “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Jennifer Shah, who was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in jail earlier this year for defrauding thousands of people in a telemarketing scam. Most federal prison camps do not have fences and hold those that the Bureau of Prisons considers being the lowest security risk. These camps usually have minimal staffing, with many of the inmates working in prison jobs, earning between 12 cents and $1.15 per hour in roles that include food service and factory employment operated by Federal Prison Industries.
