Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has given birth to her second child, and her legal team wants to delay when she starts serving her 11-year prison term for defrauding investors in her now-defunct blood-testing company.
Holmes, 39, was found guilty on four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022, after she had given birth to her first child, a son, in July 2021.
She became pregnant again in the 10 months between her conviction and her November 2022 sentencing, and Judge Edward Davila put off her incarceration until April 27, 2023, with legal experts suggesting this was supposed to allow Holmes to give birth before surrendering herself to do her time, according to The Mercury News. A court filing this week now states that Holmes has “two young children.”
Read more: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty on 4 counts of fraud, conspiracy in split verdict
Holmes is scheduled to report to a prison in Bryan, Texas, on April 27. Her lawyers have requested that she remain free while she appeals her fraud convictions. But the prosecution has also argued that Holmes is a flight risk, claiming that she had tried to flee the country on a one-way ticket to Mexico after her conviction. The Holmes legal team countered that she had hoped to attend the wedding of close friends in Mexico in late January 2022, but the trip was canceled once she was convicted.
Holmes’s legal team was not immediately available for comment.
Holmes captured the imagination of Silicon Valley in the early 2000s. Her company Theranos promised revolutionary diagnostic medical tests, and secured funding from investors by claiming that Theranos could test blood samples and detect diseases and chronic conditions from just a few drops of blood — a fraction of the amount of blood typically needed for such diagnostic tests. “One tiny drop changes everything,” a now-infamous Theranos slogan stated.
But this all came to a halt following a series of investigative pieces from The Wall Street Journal in 2016 that debunked the accuracy of these claims. In fact, Theranos was using traditional technology to run a majority of tests.
Read more: Why Elizabeth Holmes was just sentenced to over 11 years in prison
At one time, Theranos had a $9 billion valuation. And in 2015, Forbes named Holmes, then 31, the youngest self-made female billionaire, with a net worth of $4.5 billion.
