US court upholds Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes's conviction

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/24/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-conviction

by stevekemp • 1 year ago

79 90 1 year ago

I don't quite understand the reasoning for putting her in prison.

Yes, she deserves to be punished, but surely house arrest, community service etc makes more sense for a crime of this nature, rather than using tax payer money to house her for 9 years when she isn't a credible threat to society.

xnx• 1 year ago

Deterrent to future like-minded scumbags.

redeux• 1 year ago

But there’s no clear evidence that lengthy prison sentences act as a deterrent.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18613/chapter/7#135

blitzar4• 1 year ago

Doesn't seem to deter YC calling them the 2025 intake.

wizardforhire• 1 year ago

She stole from billionaires. If she had stolen from poor people or the government she’d be lauded as a hero.

mherkender• 1 year ago

You could probably say the same thing about tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in prison.

BoxFour6• 1 year ago

I’m not someone who wants prison purely as a punitive measure. I’d much rather the focus be on rehabilitation. But you’re making it sound like Elizabeth Holmes was accused of something relatively "harmless" like insider trading, rather than what she actually did.

A small sample from Wikipedia:

In January 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to Theranos based on a 2015 inspection of its Newark, California lab, reporting that the facility caused "immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety" due to a test to determine the correct dose of the blood-thinning drug warfarin

blendergeek• 1 year ago

She was not convicted of crimes against patients. She was only convicted of crimes against investors.

makoto122• 1 year ago

If threat to society is the only purpose to put someone behind bars, then a large swathe of the incarcerated population wouldn't be behind bars. You could make the same argument for Bernie Madoff, who probably isn't a danger to society considering his fraud is out in the open.

Jgrubb• 1 year ago

..And that he passed away in 2021.

MissTake• 1 year ago

You could make the same argument for Bernie Madoff, who probably isn't a danger to society considering his fraud is out in the open.

Pretty sure Madoff isn’t currently a danger to society because he’s been dead for almost 4 years now.

Spooky23• 1 year ago

She made alot of powerful people look foolish.

The nature of how the people around her exploited her also makes her a great candidate for being made an example. She has no friends to explain away her crimes, which were significant — this isn’t a Martha Stewart scenario.

Mistletoe• 1 year ago

We need stronger punishments for our robber barons, not weaker. We are witnessing the society we experience when they are not kept in check and it is the worst humanity has to offer.

abcd_f• 1 year ago

In good part it serves as a deterrent for others, given that the US legal system is precedent-based.

IsTom• 1 year ago

It makes sense to prevent her from talking to people who might try to pull another similar stunt.

briandear• 1 year ago

She is a credible threat of defrauding more people.

blitzar4• 1 year ago

If you invest in her next startup you are waiving your right to cry foul in the eveny you lose your money.

DanielHB• 1 year ago

Should bankers who caused the 2008 financial crisis also be on home arrest? Sometimes it is about punishment not rehabilitation.

Clubber• 1 year ago

Joke's on you, bankers didn't serve any jail time for 2008.

Having said that, I agree 9 years seems extensive. We're just accustomed to these long prison terms. I would have thought 2-3 years plus fines, maybe 5.

The US has the largest prison population in the world both by capita and in total numbers. This is an indication that something is horribly wrong.

pjc503• 1 year ago

Who did things that were illegal at the time?

(very few people should have gone to prison, but Sean Quinn did for Anglo-Irish Bank, and everyone involved in the US robo-signing fiasco should have at least got a conviction and ban from positions of trust)

mpalmer2• 1 year ago

Prison isn't just punishment, it's a deterrent to future criminals. If white collar criminals got to chill at home for few years, do you think we would have end up with more victims of fraud, or fewer?

anilakar• 1 year ago

It's a really terrible deterrent because people are not rational actors.

That said, I'm all for jailing her as long as non-white-collar criminals are getting the same treatment.

Edit: This seems to be a controversial opinion as this comment's score is continuously going up and down.

jfengel• 1 year ago

Given our vast prison population, perhaps it's not such an effective deterrent.

amazingamazing5• 1 year ago

There are other ways to punish people other than putting them in prison.

throwway120385• 1 year ago

It's not an effective deterrent because people who commit crimes don't often stop and think "oh if I do this I will get caught." In fact if you've ever reported crimes to police as a victim you've probably had the experience that there's really not much that they do other than take a police report and if it's a crime against property basically tell you to call your insurance company. Prison is a deterrent to you or me because we think things through before we act. But criminals often have really bad impulse control relative to the general population and so any preventative measures that rely on impulse control won't work on them.

piltdownman• 1 year ago

She's a sociopath who defrauded a number of high-profile U.S. presidential cabinet officials, and was jailed for forming "the most illustrious board in U.S. corporate history" and then shamelessly deceiving them into publicly supporting her.

The support of Schultz, Kissinger, Matis et al rendered her the world's youngest self-made female billionaire, youngest recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, and Obama's Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. She then chilled out John Carreyrou and The Wall Street Journal financially and legally for trying to expose her deception

The only reason she was not convinced for patient fraud was a weak jury deciding the patients were "one-step removed" from Holmes as CEO.

specialp• 1 year ago

Yes and none of these people asked anyone with clinical laboratory knowledge whether this device could work. Many analytes need a venous draw to attain accurate results. So even if they only used a drop of blood that blood would have to be obtained the same way as a tube is now.

It would be like a young man dropping out of school and claiming they have GPU technology that is 2x nvidia performance. Everyone would laugh and demand proof. But they all didn't do the most basic of due diligence here

duxup4• 1 year ago

House arrest would make the math on “should I try fraud”lean heavily towards fraud I think.

Maybe even more so if you’ve got a nice house.

westurner3• 1 year ago

Fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

US Sentencing Commission > Fraud: https://www.ussc.gov/topic/fraud

What would deter fraud?

"Here’s a look inside Donald Trump’s $355 million civil fraud verdict" (2024) https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-letitia-james-new-yor...

"Trump hush money verdict: Guilty of all 34 counts" .. "Guilty: Trump becomes first former US president convicted of felony crimes" (2024) https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-te...

"Trump mistakes [EJC] for [ex-wife]. #Shorts" https://youtube.com/shorts/0tq3rh6bh_8 .. https://youtu.be/lonTBp9h7Fo?si=77DIJMrpBRgLcsMK

Suppafly• 1 year ago

This, I barely leave the house anyway.

zero-sharp• 1 year ago

This comment is outrageous.

IG_Semmelweiss2• 1 year ago

People like to be soft on crime, until crime happens to them.

Its the complete inability to empathize for fellow citizens that actually do the right thing, and contribute to society; instead relating with the criminal mind.

Its a very weird stockholm's syndrome offshoot.

There's a world of difference between mercy and recklessness. Justice must work for society to function. No one is getting beheaded here for stealing an apple.

regularjack• 1 year ago

People could have died, or maybe did.

belorn• 1 year ago

The reasoning for putting her in prison seems to be based on the severity of doing an almost a billion dollar in fraud. That is in the ballpark of some of the worlds largest bank robberies.

There are good reason to question prison sentences for non-violent crime, and asking about the goals society has. If the goal is deterrent, then studies do show that harsher punishment can be effective if the crime is done under partial rational decision based on the risk of getting caught and the punishment if they do. If the goal is rehabilitation, then the results is less clear and may have the opposite effect.

There is a lot of research and studies on this subject. Some compare different countries, like Norway vs US, and other compare states/cities, or the same location but different years with different strategies. To my knowledge there isn't a lot of consensus in what actually works.

whoitwas• 1 year ago

Why would you suggest she isn't a threat? I think while incarcerated she she have additional restrictions to prevent her from scamming anyone else.

RHSeeger• 1 year ago

Being in prison makes it less likely she will be able to commit another fraud.

plagiarist• 1 year ago

The miscarriage of justice here is that she was acquitted of the widespread and deliberate medical malpractice, not that she has been jailed. She absolutely was a danger to everyone who trusted the tests from her machines.

TheBigSalad• 1 year ago

Didn't she steal billions of dollars? What do you think bank robbers should get, a 5 minute time out?

perihelions• 1 year ago

Text of decision,

(.pdf) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca9.341...

Arguments in video format,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mP8zxSi6g ("22-10312 USA v. Elizabeth Holmes: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (23.2K subscribers)")

crossroadsguy• 1 year ago

The judge in the middle seems to be having a particularly great day and is quite cheerful. Unlike the rest two (flankies) who have a more serious (if I may say 'grim') dispositions I have come to associate judges with :)

twilo• 1 year ago

Bad Blood is a good book

dustingetz4• 1 year ago

She described federal prison as “hell and torture” and said she was “not the same person I was back then”. “The people I love the most have to walk away as I stand here, a prisoner, and my reality sinks in”

would love to see Holmes as a face of prison reform when she gets out, she has the right skills and connections to really make a difference

callc• 1 year ago

Why Holmes? I can’t tell if this is sarcasm. I would rather not see a person known to be psychopathic a lier, and lacking empathy (imagine the mindset to fake medical devices, having a direct impact on the healthcare of individual people) be the forefront of a social progressive movement. Can we not find someone with better qualities?

dustingetz4• 1 year ago

the thing is, to spearhead prison reform, you need someone who was once a prisoner, and the intersection of that with "compassionate, honest, empathetic" characteristics would not appear to be very large

graboy• 1 year ago

She is a psychopath, she has not changed, the "loving, caring mother" thing is a false persona she has created.

aitchnyu• 1 year ago

Yikes, two humans born for purely selfish purposes. Couple of dates: indictment: June 15, 2018; trial: August 31, 2021.

In early 2019, Holmes became engaged to Evans, a 27-year-old heir to Evans Hotels, a family-owned group of hotels in the San Diego area.[136][135] In mid-2019, Holmes and Evans reportedly married in a private ceremony.[137][138] Holmes and Evans have not directly confirmed whether the two are legally married, and several sources continue to refer to him as her "partner" rather than her husband.[139][140] Holmes gave birth to a son in July 2021.[140] In October 2022, weeks before her sentencing hearing, it was reported she was pregnant with a second child.[141] Holmes was accused of conceiving a second child, according to a court filing from February 2023, as a strategy for delaying the start of her prison term.

rich_sasha• 1 year ago

I have no intimate knowledge of US prisons, but she seems to be kept in a minimum security prison: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Camp,_Bryan

Apparently, according to this: https://federalcriminaldefenseattorney.com/prison-life/priso... there are no guards or fences, hardly any violence. There is a gym, various sports facilities and medical care.

I'm not volunteering to swap my life for this, but "hell and torture"..???

chb• 1 year ago

The self-pitying words of entitlement coupled with a persecution complex.

nojvek• 1 year ago

I wonder if Elon will go in for defrauding Investors?

How much should TSLA stock tank before Investors get wary?

US court upholds Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes's conviction

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