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Elizabeth Holmes urged a U.S. judge not to send her to prison, as the founder of Theranos Inc prepares to be sentenced next week for defrauding investors in the blood testing start-up. In a Thursday night court filing, lawyers for Holmes asked that she receive 18 months in home confinement, followed by community service, at her Nov. 18 sentencing before U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California. The lawyers said prison time was unnecessary to deter future wrongdoing, calling the 38-year-old Holmes a “singular human with much to give” and not the robotic, emotionless “caricature” seen by the public and media. “No defendant should be made a martyr to public passion,” the lawyers wrote. “We ask that the court consider, as it must, the real person, the real company and the complex circumstances surrounding the offense.” Prosecutors are expected to file their sentencing recommendation soon. A jury convicted Holmes in January on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. Eac...

In a court filing Thursday, the legal team for Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos, made a case to get the founder out of serving a lengthy prison sentence for defrauding investors. Bloomberg I Getty Images Elizabeth Holmes leaving federal court in October 2022. "We acknowledge that this may seem a tall order given the public perception of this case," the filing said, per Bloomberg . It asked for her to serve 18 months confined in her home. In addition, 130 people connected to the founder, including former Theranos investors and family and friends, submitted letters in her support. The filing argued the "real" Holmes has been obscured by "media vitriol." Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 and claimed the company had a revolutionary test that could use a much smaller amount of blood to test for a wider range of illnesses, including cancer, and raised $700 ...

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes should spend 15 years in prison and pay $800 million in restitution to investors defrauded in the blood testing start-up, U.S. prosecutors recommended late on Friday. The Department of Justice recommendation, made in a court filing, came as Holmes prepares to be sentenced next week. “Considering the extensiveness of Holmes’ fraud… the sentencing of 180 months’ imprisonment would reflect the seriousness of the offenses, provide for just punishment for the offenses, and deter Holmes and others,” the prosecutors said. Holmes earlier urged U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California not to send her to prison. A jury convicted the 38-year-old on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy in January. Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison term. Any sentence would likely be served concurrently. Prosecutors said she lied to investors from 2010 to 2015 by promising Theranos Inc’s technology could run many tests on one drop of blood from a fin...

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the not-so-revolutionary blood-testing company Theranos, has been gripping the headlines for nearly a decade. Although she was once seen as an impressive young entrepreneur, a shocking Wall Street Journal expose in 2015 revealed that her blood-testing technology didn't produce accurate results, giving thousands of people faulty reports. Holmes stepped down as Theranos CEO in 2018 and was convicted of four fraud-related counts in January 2022. She is set to be sentenced on November 18. The saga was fictionalized by streamer Hulu in March 2022's "The Dropout" with Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Holmes. Image credit: GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP via Getty Images Who Is Elizabeth Holmes? Elizabeth Holmes' journey began at Stanford University in 2002 , where she had planned to study medicine until she realized she had a fear of needles and blood. Inspired by her own skittishness, she filed a patent for a wea...

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes arrives at federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Oct. 17. Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press A federal judge on Friday will decide whether disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes should serve a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors and endangering patients while peddling a bogus blood-testing technology. Holmes’ sentencing in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where she was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marks a climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu TV series about her meteoric rise and mortifying downfall. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila will take centre stage as he weighs the federal government’s recommendation to send Holmes, 38, to federal prison for 15 years. That’s slightly less than the maximum sentence of 20 years she could face, but far longer than her legal team’s attempt to limit her incarceration to no more than 18 months, pref...

Sam Bankman-Fried speaks at the Crypto Bahamas conference in Nassau on April 27. ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ /The New York Times News Service Chris Clearfield is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearfield Group. Andras Tilcsik is a professor with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. They are the authors of Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home . The bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange displays the classic elements of the failure of what is known as a “complex” system. It’s like the remake of a famous movie franchise: a story with the same plot and basic characters, only played by different actors. The same factors that underlie the collapse of FTX are at the root of the financial crisis, the Enron bankruptcy, and frauds such as Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos. These factors are also at the root of plane crashes, ...

Former Theranos executive Ramesh Balwani walks into federal court in San Jose, Calif., on June 24. Michael Liedtke/The Associated Press Former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 13 years in prison for his role in the company’s blood-testing hoax – a punishment slightly longer than that given to the CEO, who was his lover and accomplice in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals. Balwani, 57, was convicted in July of fraud and conspiracy connected to the company’s bogus medical technology that duped investors and endangered patients. His sentencing came less than three weeks after Elizabeth Holmes, the company’s 38-year-old founder and CEO, received more than 11 years in prison for her part in the scheme, which has been dissected in a book, an HBO documentary and an award-winning TV series. Balwani’s sentence was less than the 15 years sought by federal prosecutors, who depicted him as a ruthless, power-hungry figure. But it is substantially l...