Elizabeth Holmes has given birth to a second child, her attorneys revealed in a court filing seeking to delay the beginning of her more than 11-year prison sentence.
The disgraced Theranos founder’s children, one an infant and one a toddler, were two of the close family ties cited by Holmes’s attorneys as reasons why she does not pose a flight risk and should be allowed to remain free while she appeals her conviction.
Both of Holmes’s children were born after she was indicted on criminal fraud and conspiracy charges related to her failed blood-testing startup in June 2018.
Holmes was convicted on four counts in January 2022, sentenced in November 2022 and ordered to report to prison on 27 April 2023. She has remained free throughout.
In September, Holmes requested a new trial, arguing that an important witness for the prosecution, the former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, had expressed regret for his testimony and its role in her conviction.
The appeal also alleges mistakes and wrongdoing by the prosecution during the trial.
Attorneys for Holmes have argued her prison sentence should be delayed until after an appeals court determines whether she should get a new trial.
In the new filing, dated 23 February, Holmes’s attorneys argue that she is “neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community”.
They dispute the government’s claim in a January filing opposing the delay to her sentence that she made an “attempt to flee the country shortly after she was convicted”.
Holmes booked a one-way ticket to Mexico departing 26 January 2022, prosecutors said.
The ticket was booked by Holmes’s partner, the hotel heir Billy Evans, “before the verdict and full of hope” in order to attend “the Mexico wedding of close friends”, Holmes’s attorneys claimed.
Evans canceled the ticket when the government objected, the filing states, and the government took no further action at the time.
Holmes’s attorneys also refuted the government’s implication that her residence on a California estate with monthly expenses exceeding $13,000 paid entirely by Evans was evidence that she poses a flight risk, stating: “There is nothing untoward about Mr Evans paying for the living expenses of his children and partner.”
Holmes founded Theranos at the age of 19, after dropping out of Stanford. The startup promised to revolutionize medicine by allowing hundreds of tests to be carried out on a single drop of blood.
The company attracted enormous investment and media hype, catapulting Holmes to business-world stardom and garnering a valuation of $9bn. But Theranos collapsed following reporting by the Wall Street Journal that revealed its core technology did not work.
