Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes entered Texas prison where she could spend the next 11 years for overseeing a blood-testing hoax that became a parable
Holmes, 39, on Tuesday (May 30) entered a federal women鈥檚 prison camp located in Bryan, Texas 鈥� where the federal judge who recommended she be incarcerated. The minimum-security facility is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) northwest of Houston, where Holmes grew up aspiring to become a technology visionary along the lines of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
As she begins her sentence, Holmes is leaving behind two young children 鈥� a son born in July 2021 a few weeks before the start of her trial and a 3-month old daughter who was conceived after a jury in January 2022.
Holmes was free on bail up until Tuesday, most recently living in the San Diego area with the children鈥檚 father, William 鈥淏illy鈥� Evans. The couple met in 2017 around the same time Holmes was under investigation for the collapse of Theranos, a startup she founded after dropping out of Stanford University when she was just 19.
While she was building up Theranos, Holmes grew closer to Ramesh, 鈥淪unny鈥� Balwani, who would become her romantic partner as well as an investor and fellow executive in the Palo Alto, California, company.
Together, Holmes and Balwani promised Theranos would revolutionize health care with a technology that could quickly scan for diseases and other problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.
The hype surrounding that purported breakthrough helped Theranos raise nearly $1 billion from enthralled investors, assemble an influential board of directors that include former Presidential cabinet members George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and James Mattis and turned Holmes into a Silicon Valley sensation with a fortune valued at $4.5 billion on paper in 2014.
But it all blew up after serious dangerous flaws in Theranos鈥� technology that Holmes and Balwani tried to thwart. Holmes and Balwani, who had been secretly living together while running Theranos, broke up after the Journal鈥檚 revelations and the company collapsed. In 2018, the U.S. Justice Department charged both with a litany of white-collar crimes in a case aimed at putting a stop to the Silicon Valley practice of overselling the capabilities of a still-developing technology 鈥� a technique that became known as 鈥渇ake it 鈥榯il you make it.鈥�
Holmes admitted making mistakes at Theranos, but steadfastly denied committing crimes during seven often-fascinating days of testimony on the witness stand during her trial. At one point, she told the jury while he controlled her in ways that she said clouded her thinking. Balwani鈥檚 attorney steadfastly denied Holmes allegations, which was one of the key reasons they were tried separately.
Balwani, 57, was in a trial that began two months after Holmes鈥� ended. He is currently serving in a Southern California prison.
Maintaining she was treated unfairly during the trial, Holmes sought to remain free while she appeals her conviction. But who presided over her trial, and leaving her no other avenue left to follow but the one that will take her to prison nearly 20 years after she founded Theranos.
Attorneys representing Holmes did not immediately respond when contacted by The Associated Press for statement on Tuesday.
FPC Bryan, a minimum-security prison camp located about 95 miles northwest of Houston, encompasses about 37 acres of land and houses about 650 women 鈥� including , who was sentenced earlier this year to 6 1/2 years in prison for defrauding thousands of people in a yearslong telemarketing scam.
Most federal prison camps don鈥檛 even have fences and house those the Bureau of Prisons considers to be the lowest security risk. The prison camps also often have minimal staffing and many of the people incarcerated there work at prison jobs.
According to a 2016 FPC Bryan inmate handbook, those in the Texas facility who are eligible to work can earn between 12 cents and $1.15 per hour in their job assignments, which include food service roles and factory employment operated by Federal Prison Industries.
Federal prison camps were originally designed with low security to make operations easier and to allow inmates tasked with performing work at the prison, like landscaping and maintenance, to avoid repeatedly checking in and out of a main prison facility. But the lax security opened a gateway for contraband, such as drugs, cellphones and weapons. The limited security has also led to from prison camps.
In November, a man incarcerated at another federal prison camp in Arizona in a visitation area and tried to shoot his wife in the head. The gun jammed and no one was injured. But the incident exposed major security flaws at the facility and the agency鈥檚 director at all federal prison camps around the U.S.
Lekan Oyekanmi And Michael Liedtke, The Associated Press
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