Elizabeth Holmes Sentenced to More Than 11 Years in Prison for Theranos Fraud Case

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has been sentenced to 11.25 years in prison 10 months after she was found guilty on four fraud-related charges.

By Gabrielle Chung Nov 18, 2022 10:31 PMTags
Watch: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Sentenced to 11.25 Years in Prison

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will be spending time behind bars.

The 38-year-old—who was portrayed by Amanda Seyfried in Hulu's The Dropout, a TV series documenting the downfall of the entrepreneur's health technology company—was sentenced to 11.25 years in prison and three years of supervised release after she was found guilty on four fraud-related charges, according to NBC News. The judgment was passed down on Nov. 18, along with orders for her to surrender to authorities on April 27, 2023.

The sentencing was initially scheduled for October, but was pushed back after Holmes' legal team said a witness who testified in the four-month trial visited her home to express regret, according to CNN.

During the trial, prosecutors accused Holmes of defrauding investors, doctors and patients with her business, which purported to have developed a blood-testing method that gets rapid and accurate results by merely using a small amount of sample gathered through a finger prick.

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After the Downfall: What Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos Team Are Up to Now

On Jan. 3, a California jury found Holmes guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud. However, jurors determined that she was not guilty of a second count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and reached no verdict on three more counts of wire fraud. She was additionally found not guilty on the final three counts in the case.

A Stanford University dropout, Holmes became somewhat of a "tech visionary" in Silicon Valley after founding Theranos in 2003. The company was backed by high-profile investors such as venture capitalist Tim Draper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, per CNBC.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

However, following a 2015 Wall Street Journal report, which claimed that Theranos' technology was faulty and dependent on third-party blood-testing machines for its results, Holmes was accused of making "numerous misrepresentations" about the company to generate revenue, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The scandal since inspired several projects chronicling Theranos' fall from grace, including John Carreyrou's book Bad Blood and the HBO documentary The Inventor.

Read more about the controversy here.

E! News reached out to Holmes' attorney for comment on her sentencing but has not heard back.

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