Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes arrives to begin serving her prison sentence for defrauding investors in the failed blood-testing startup, at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, May 30, 2023.
Go Nakamura | Reuters
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on Thursday lost her bid to have an appeal of her 2022 fraud conviction reheard.
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Holmes’ request for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel that upheld her conviction.
At the same time, the court said no judge on the circuit court had asked for a vote on whether to have the full court rehear the appeal.
The decision leaves Holmes with the Supreme Court as her last chance to undo her conviction. She will have to ask the court to hear the case.
Holmes, 41, was sentenced in January 2023 to 11 years and 3 months in prison after being found guilty of four counts of wire fraud in January 2022.
She was found guilty of deceiving investors about the capabilities of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003. The company crumbled after a Wall Street Journal story outlined the firm’s struggles and shut down in 2018.
Holmes and former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison on fraud charges, were ordered to pay $452 million in restitution.
Balwani was Holmes’ mentor and former lover.
Holmes began serving her sentence on May 30, 2023, at a women’s federal prison in Bryan, Texas. She has since had time shaved off her sentence. In July 2023, about two years were cut and in May 2024 her time was reduced by a further four months.
Holmes, the one-time rising star of Silicon Valley, has two children, one born before her trial in 2021 and the other after her sentencing.
— CNBC’s Scott Cohn contributed to this report.
