WASHINGTON (Scripps News) – Elizabeth Holmes, now serving an 11-year sentence for crimes related to overseeing the failed blood-testing company Theranos, is arguing she should not have to pay a suggested $250 per month to victims of the failed company.
Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, center, is escorted by prison officials into a federal women’s prison camp on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, in Bryan, Texas. Holmes will spend the next 11 years serving her sentence for overseeing an infamous blood-testing hoax. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
Federal prosecutors argued that Holmes should pay at least 10% of her wages or $250 per month, whichever is greater, as restitution after she is released from prison.
Holmes, 39, has entered a minimum-security women’s prison camp located in Bryan, Texas, that holds about 650 inmates.
Holmes was the CEO of Theranos, a startup that claimed its groundbreaking technology could detect diseases with a finger prick and just a few drops of blood.
Those claims led to nearly $1 billion in funding. However, Holmes defrauded investors out of millions of dollars during her years running the company, promoting a blood-testing device that never actually worked.
READ MORE: Elizabeth Holmes enters prison to begin 11-year sentence
In a court filing, lawyers for Holmes argued that there “is no basis in the record for the payment structure in the government’s request.”
Her attorneys appeared not to object to a request that she pay $25 each quarter that she is in prison, as part of her restitution payments. It’s possible that Holmes could hold a job at the women’s prison camp, making wages that would likely fall under $2 per hour.
Holmes has reportedly been ordered to pay around $452 million in restitution to those she is accused of defrauding in the process of trying to build her failed company.
Her former lover and business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was given a 13-year prison sentence this year.
This story was originally published on June 13, 2023, by Scripps News, an E.W. Scripps Company.
