SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth Holmes’ dog Balto, a husky she reportedly described as a wolf, was killed by a cougar, according to a letter from her partner Billy Evans to the judge who is set to sentence her next week for felony fraud.
The letter to Judge Edward Davila, dated Sept. 22, also confirmed that Theranos founder Holmes, who has a 16-month-old son with Evans, is pregnant again. Holmes was convicted in January of four counts of felony fraud, after defrauding investors in her Palo Alto blood-testing startup out of more than $144 million. Davila is to sentence her Nov. 18 in U.S. District Court in San Jose.
Evans wrote that after meeting Holmes at a Fleet Week charity event in 2017, the two would go for long walks with Balto. “He was her constant companion and she treated him with so much love,” Evans wrote in the letter, filed late Thursday. It was part of many letters of support submitted with Holmes’ legal argument for a sentence of community service with no imprisonment, or 18 months’ prison time at the maximum.
