Convicted Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes said she deserves to spend 18 months in home confinement, not prison, asking the judge who will sentence her next week to look beyond the “mocked and vilified” caricature of her as a cheat, and to instead see her as a human being.
Ten months after she was found guilty of defrauding investors who lost hundreds of millions of dollars in her blood-testing startup, the 38-year-old filed a request for leniency late Thursday accompanied by letters from more than 130 friends, relatives, Theranos investors and former company employees who describe what her lawyers called “the real Elizabeth Holmes.”
Criminal defense lawyers have said U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who has handled her case since she was indicted in 2018, the year Theranos collapsed after once reaching a valuation of $9 billion, will use whatever sentence he imposes to send a message to Silicon Valley and beyond.
