Elizabeth Holmes’ legal team was scheduled to return to court Tuesday to deliver a last-chance appeal of her fraud conviction in San Francisco federal court.
Holmes, 40, claimed it was “unjust” when a jury convicted her on four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022.
Since the verdict was delivered, the former Silicon Valley golden girl has made numerous efforts to stay out of prison. However, she was forced to start serving her 11-year sentence in May 2023.
“The public narrative regarding the spectacle of Theranos’ downfall is that the company’s technology simply did not work, and Holmes knew it,” Holmes’ attorneys wrote in a November 2023 court filing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “But Holmes’ intent and knowledge on this central question were intensely contested at trial.”
Legal experts have described Holmes’ appeal as a long shot. A jury also convicted her business and romantic partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, on several counts of fraud. Balwani was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and his appeal will also be heard Tuesday.
Ramesh Balwani
Jeff Chiu/AP Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former lover and business partner of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, arrives at federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Dec. 7, 2022. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
“The issues that Holmes’s legal team has raised…are all issues that are difficult to win on appeal — it’s difficult to win on issues when you’re Monday morning quarterbacking the decisions made by the judge,” former federal prosecutor Agustin Orozco told CNN.
Holmes’ well-chronicled downfall began in 2015, when the Wall Street Journal reported Theranos’ central product — blood tests based on a single drop of blood — did not work.
According to federal prosecutors, Holmes knew about the faulty technology, but lied to investors and told them it worked and was used by the U.S. military.
At trial, the feds mentioned real-world impacts of the busted tech: a woman told she would have a miscarriage even though her baby was actually healthy, a man incorrectly told he had late-stage prostate cancer, a woman falsely told she had HIV.
Following her conviction, Holmes has made several efforts to stay out of prison. Her legal team first claimed the jury acted irrationally, and when that didn’t work, they asked for a new trial and claimed a key witness regretted his testimony.
Even after sentencing, she attempted to remain free pending her appeal but was eventually forced to report to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas, on May 30, 2023.
