Elizabeth Holmes Attempted to Flee the Country After Fraud Conviction, Prosecutors Claim

The disgraced Theranos founder has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy and fraud.

Following her guilty verdict last year, Elizabeth Holmes reportedly tried to make a run for it and flee the country to Mexico, prosecutors allege in new court documents.

The founder of failed blood-testing company Theranos was convicted in January 2022 on fraud and conspiracy charges after falsifying blood test results to deceive investors with unfounded claims about her company’s technology.

In November of last year, Holmes was sentenced to over 11 years in prison and is expected to surrender herself in April 2023. She has since appealed her conviction.

But in new court documents, prosecutors claim that Holmes, 38, poses a flight risk as she allegedly made “an attempt to flee the country” last year, multiple outlets report, including PEOPLE.

“The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that Defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip,” the filing claims. “Only after the government raised this unauthorized flight with defense counsel was the trip canceled.”

Prosecutors say that Holmes will likely “reply that she did not in fact leave the country as scheduled,” however, “it is difficult to know with certainty” that she wouldn’t have left if the government didn’t step in.

The filing also argues that the incentive to flee for Holmes—who is currently pregnant with her second child—”has never been higher,” and that “she has the means to act on that incentive.”

While awaiting her surrender date, Holmes lives on an estate “with reportedly more than $13,000 in monthly expenses for upkeep,” and “continues to show no remorse for her victims,” prosecutors claim, per ABC News.

The filing also notes, “There are not two systems of justice—one for the wealthy and one for the poor—there is one criminal justice system in this country. And under that system, the time has come for Elizabeth Holmes to answer for her crimes committed nearly a decade ago, as found by a jury made up of a fair cross section of individuals from this community, and to begin serving the term of imprisonment imposed by this Court as sufficient but not greater than necessary to account for those crimes.”

Source: Yahoo

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Jack J. Kelly