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Based on a very quick reading, I think the most serious offense (the $100M one) would at least land in the 97-121 months bucket. If she serves half of that, bes

Based on a very quick reading, I think the most serious offense (the $100M one) would at least land in the 97-121 months bucket. If she serves half of that, best case for her is 4 years. Not too bad.

hooande 5y ago
people generally serve the majority of a federal sentence. serving 75% of sentenced time is much more common than 50%
metadat 5y ago
Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example. Otherwise it signals that wantrepeneurs can keep doing it with minimal repercussions.
- joering2 5y ago
  To me the justice system already failed. It supposed to protect small people, society, vulnerable entities. There are stories how Holmes test were indirect result of someone death because they rely on those. Meanwhile the only real sticking crimes are the one she commit against Betsy Davos (dirty corrupted rabbit hole warning if you Google her name). Obviously Bets placed few phonecalls. It it wasn't some VIP, she would get away with that too because all investments comes with risk.
  - boeingUH60 5y ago
    Come on. You make it sound like it was only Betsy Devos she defrauded. There’s a long list of other ultra-rich people, including Oracle guy Larry Ellison, Walton Family (Walmart owners), and Rupert Murdoch. Not fair to frame her sentence as Betsy pulling strings, even when I’m no fan of that woman for obvious reasons.
    - microtherion 5y ago
      If you added those names to elicit more sympathy for the defrauded investors, you're not exactly succeeding so far. You could throw in Henry Kissinger as well, and I still wouldn't feel particularly sorry for them…
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        Is there any way that some of those investors/board members could get some federal prison time? Just like, you know, for justice?!
      - boeingUH60 5y ago
        I added them to put things in context and refute the statement that Holmes’s situation was about Betsy Devos pulling strings. I couldn’t care less or sympathize with billionaires who have already made back magnitudes of the money they lost on Theranos with other investments. For example, Larry is up $14 billion(!) on a $1 billion investment in Tesla in 2018. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/larry-ellison-oracle-tesla-stock-price-gain-rich-list-billionaires-2021-12 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/larry-elliso...
        microtherion 5y ago
        Yes, I understand, it was just that the list was not just populated with run-of-the-mill meh billionaires, these are some of the least popular (at least in certain circles) billionaires one could pick (Nighttime noise disturbances — destroying small businesses - facilitating genocide — they really cover a wide portfolio). If Holmes had decided to reinvent herself as a Robin Hood figure, she might be feted in Jacobin by now.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > You make it sound like it was only Betsy Devos she defrauded In fairness, Betsy was 16th in line for for the US Presidency when Holmes was being charged and everything set up. And were it not for COVID-19 she would have been in that position for the entire trial. I'm sure with that kind of political power she was pulling some strings for vengeance.
  - odiroot 5y ago
    I believe you're missing forest for the trees. Some other commenters in this thread actually gave better explanation but think practically about this. The prosecutors are not stupid. They have to come up with charges that actually stick, otherwise they risk losing this case in a spectacular fashion. If they went with an angle "X is morally bankrupt and her actions caused some deaths", it would make so much harder to prove and get the jury to agree to it.
- mdoms 5y ago
  Ok I'm not American so perhaps my perspective is different... More than 10 years would be utterly barbaric. The 65 years mentioned in another comment chain would be well beyond the pale. I'm no fan of Holmes, but what good does it serve to lock up non violent criminals for decades?
  - tptacek 5y ago
    It'll be over 10 easy, because she burned a zillion dollars, and wire fraud sentences scale with losses.
    - Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
      The BBC said she faces upto 20 years, but predicts she will get a much lower sentence because she has no criminal history and she is a first time mother with a young child.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Google "federal sentence table". The "no criminal history" thing is directly expressed on the chart (she'll be sentenced from the first column); each cell in the table is a range of months, and the first-time mother thing might get her the lower end of that range. The crimes she's convicted of are so severely sentenced that it's hard to see her not getting double digit years. With all the charges grouped, including the conspiracy charge, we'd be looking at an offense level around 35 --- 168 to 210 months.
        Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
        Federal judges must calculate the guidelines and consider them when determining a sentence, but are not required to issue sentences within the guidelines. So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a downward departure from the guidelines. I'm not saying I agree there should be a downward departure (imo, her pregnancy came across as a "Pregnancy Of Convenience"), just that there could be.
      - 5y ago
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  "Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example." I knows Theranos was headquartered in Palo Alto for part of its life, but is it really a SV company? Looking at their board I see mostly old-school business people from a construction company, Wells Fargo, and James Mattis and a former head of CDC. Only real tech person seems to be someone from NetApp. On the investor side, I don't see any of the big SV names either. Initial funding came from Rupert Murdoch.
  - atdt 5y ago
    Yes, absolutely. https://youtu.be/uJDc4tOU3zo?t=465 https://youtu.be/uJDc4tOU3zo?t=465
    - Hermitian909 5y ago
      I think there's some quibbling over what a SV company is. Theranos was located in SV and Holmes referred to it as a SV style company, you might argue this is enough to make something a "Silicon Valley Company". I think OP would view such a company as one both in SV and embraced by the local ecosystem of developers and investors. I think SV "learning a lesson" from the downfall of a company only makes sense for the latter definition, and I don't think Theranos fits it. In reading Bad Blood it becomes apparent that, Tim Draper aside, the SV investor community realized much earlier than anyone else that Theranos was shady and either pulled their money or stopped investing. As someone living here in the area at the time I felt it was common knowledge in dev circles that Theranos was shady and lying about their capabilities (though not to the level that was revealed). Certainly it did not seem to be a prestigious place to have on your resume. Given that the SV ecosystem seemed to largely sniff out Theranos before the rest of the world it seems weird to expect them to learn a lesson from its downfall.
  - marvin 5y ago
    You could draw the conclusion that most experienced Silicon Valley folks saw it coming.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    > is it really a SV company? The answer to this depends a lot on whether you consider e.g. Arrillaga-Andreessen "SV" or not. Holmes certainly wanted Theranos, and herself, to be viewed and valuated as such.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  - ericmay 5y ago
    While I don’t share in the misanthropic sentiment of the OP, it’s difficult for me to not sit here and say well if you didn’t want to go to prison you shouldn’t have defrauded people and violated the law…
    - microtherion 5y ago
      And her misdeeds did not just cost some wealthy investors some money; they seem to have played a significant role in the suicide of Theranos chief scientist Ian Gibbons: https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-employee-death-2016-9?op=1&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holme...
    - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      I don't think anyone here is saying she shouldn't be going to prison or that she should be going there for less than a decade. But spending 65 years in jail for _anything_ short of substantially heinous crimes should cause anyone to question the motivation behind the sentencing. I understand that the wire fraud is what's causing the time to stack up here, but a 65 year sentence would be ridiculous. I'm much more onboard with a 10-25 year sentence though, even if there's perjury involved.
  - KumoriNova 5y ago
    I don't want her to serve out a death sentence. I'd like her to serve a fair sentence.
  - SEJeff 5y ago
    Alternatively, there were retirement funds and real people whom she defrauded, some of which needed that money to live on and now do not have it. Strong punishments befit serious crimes. More than 140 million defrauded counts as serious. Maybe she shouldn't have broken the law? Besides, she can likely get probation with good behavior after a decade or two of time served.
- creato 5y ago
  Can you name another "wantrepeneur" that needed deterring by this case? I don't follow startups that closely. The only example I can think of is Elon Musk's "full self driving" promises, but the gap between promise and reality is a lot smaller in that case. Even then, the claims are still mostly future timelines, not "it works now, no I can't show you, trust me!!"
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    The Ozy Media guy seems similar enough. Blatantly lying to investors about the current facts of the business to extract money from them.
    - creato 5y ago
      It sounds like they are getting similar treatment to Holmes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/business/ozy-doj-sec-investigations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/business/ozy-doj-sec-inve...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    uBeam.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Unlike many state systems, in the federal system the sentence is close to the actual time you’ll serve, short of a Presidential commutation or some other special intervention. Other than up to 54 days/year good conduct time, there's not systematic early release.
- madaxe_again 5y ago

Based on a very quick reading, I think the most serious offense (the $100M one) would at least land in the 97-121 months bucket. If she serves half of that, best case for her is 4 years. Not too bad.

hooande 5y ago

people generally serve the majority of a federal sentence. serving 75% of sentenced time is much more common than 50%

metadat 5y ago

Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example. Otherwise it signals that wantrepeneurs can keep doing it with minimal repercussions.

joering2 5y ago
To me the justice system already failed. It supposed to protect small people, society, vulnerable entities. There are stories how Holmes test were indirect result of someone death because they rely on those. Meanwhile the only real sticking crimes are the one she commit against Betsy Davos (dirty corrupted rabbit hole warning if you Google her name). Obviously Bets placed few phonecalls. It it wasn't some VIP, she would get away with that too because all investments comes with risk.
- boeingUH60 5y ago
  Come on. You make it sound like it was only Betsy Devos she defrauded. There’s a long list of other ultra-rich people, including Oracle guy Larry Ellison, Walton Family (Walmart owners), and Rupert Murdoch. Not fair to frame her sentence as Betsy pulling strings, even when I’m no fan of that woman for obvious reasons.
  - microtherion 5y ago
    If you added those names to elicit more sympathy for the defrauded investors, you're not exactly succeeding so far. You could throw in Henry Kissinger as well, and I still wouldn't feel particularly sorry for them…
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      Is there any way that some of those investors/board members could get some federal prison time? Just like, you know, for justice?!
    - boeingUH60 5y ago
      I added them to put things in context and refute the statement that Holmes’s situation was about Betsy Devos pulling strings. I couldn’t care less or sympathize with billionaires who have already made back magnitudes of the money they lost on Theranos with other investments. For example, Larry is up $14 billion(!) on a $1 billion investment in Tesla in 2018. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/larry-ellison-oracle-tesla-stock-price-gain-rich-list-billionaires-2021-12 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/larry-elliso...
      - microtherion 5y ago
        Yes, I understand, it was just that the list was not just populated with run-of-the-mill meh billionaires, these are some of the least popular (at least in certain circles) billionaires one could pick (Nighttime noise disturbances — destroying small businesses - facilitating genocide — they really cover a wide portfolio). If Holmes had decided to reinvent herself as a Robin Hood figure, she might be feted in Jacobin by now.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > You make it sound like it was only Betsy Devos she defrauded In fairness, Betsy was 16th in line for for the US Presidency when Holmes was being charged and everything set up. And were it not for COVID-19 she would have been in that position for the entire trial. I'm sure with that kind of political power she was pulling some strings for vengeance.
- odiroot 5y ago
  I believe you're missing forest for the trees. Some other commenters in this thread actually gave better explanation but think practically about this. The prosecutors are not stupid. They have to come up with charges that actually stick, otherwise they risk losing this case in a spectacular fashion. If they went with an angle "X is morally bankrupt and her actions caused some deaths", it would make so much harder to prove and get the jury to agree to it.
mdoms 5y ago
Ok I'm not American so perhaps my perspective is different... More than 10 years would be utterly barbaric. The 65 years mentioned in another comment chain would be well beyond the pale. I'm no fan of Holmes, but what good does it serve to lock up non violent criminals for decades?
- tptacek 5y ago
  It'll be over 10 easy, because she burned a zillion dollars, and wire fraud sentences scale with losses.
  - Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
    The BBC said she faces upto 20 years, but predicts she will get a much lower sentence because she has no criminal history and she is a first time mother with a young child.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Google "federal sentence table". The "no criminal history" thing is directly expressed on the chart (she'll be sentenced from the first column); each cell in the table is a range of months, and the first-time mother thing might get her the lower end of that range. The crimes she's convicted of are so severely sentenced that it's hard to see her not getting double digit years. With all the charges grouped, including the conspiracy charge, we'd be looking at an offense level around 35 --- 168 to 210 months.
      - Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
        Federal judges must calculate the guidelines and consider them when determining a sentence, but are not required to issue sentences within the guidelines. So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a downward departure from the guidelines. I'm not saying I agree there should be a downward departure (imo, her pregnancy came across as a "Pregnancy Of Convenience"), just that there could be.
    - 5y ago
ajmurmann 5y ago
"Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example." I knows Theranos was headquartered in Palo Alto for part of its life, but is it really a SV company? Looking at their board I see mostly old-school business people from a construction company, Wells Fargo, and James Mattis and a former head of CDC. Only real tech person seems to be someone from NetApp. On the investor side, I don't see any of the big SV names either. Initial funding came from Rupert Murdoch.
- atdt 5y ago
  Yes, absolutely. https://youtu.be/uJDc4tOU3zo?t=465 https://youtu.be/uJDc4tOU3zo?t=465
  - Hermitian909 5y ago
    I think there's some quibbling over what a SV company is. Theranos was located in SV and Holmes referred to it as a SV style company, you might argue this is enough to make something a "Silicon Valley Company". I think OP would view such a company as one both in SV and embraced by the local ecosystem of developers and investors. I think SV "learning a lesson" from the downfall of a company only makes sense for the latter definition, and I don't think Theranos fits it. In reading Bad Blood it becomes apparent that, Tim Draper aside, the SV investor community realized much earlier than anyone else that Theranos was shady and either pulled their money or stopped investing. As someone living here in the area at the time I felt it was common knowledge in dev circles that Theranos was shady and lying about their capabilities (though not to the level that was revealed). Certainly it did not seem to be a prestigious place to have on your resume. Given that the SV ecosystem seemed to largely sniff out Theranos before the rest of the world it seems weird to expect them to learn a lesson from its downfall.
- marvin 5y ago
  You could draw the conclusion that most experienced Silicon Valley folks saw it coming.
- morelisp 5y ago
  > is it really a SV company? The answer to this depends a lot on whether you consider e.g. Arrillaga-Andreessen "SV" or not. Holmes certainly wanted Theranos, and herself, to be viewed and valuated as such.
bpodgursky 5y ago
- ericmay 5y ago
  While I don’t share in the misanthropic sentiment of the OP, it’s difficult for me to not sit here and say well if you didn’t want to go to prison you shouldn’t have defrauded people and violated the law…
  - microtherion 5y ago
    And her misdeeds did not just cost some wealthy investors some money; they seem to have played a significant role in the suicide of Theranos chief scientist Ian Gibbons: https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-employee-death-2016-9?op=1&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holme...
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    I don't think anyone here is saying she shouldn't be going to prison or that she should be going there for less than a decade. But spending 65 years in jail for _anything_ short of substantially heinous crimes should cause anyone to question the motivation behind the sentencing. I understand that the wire fraud is what's causing the time to stack up here, but a 65 year sentence would be ridiculous. I'm much more onboard with a 10-25 year sentence though, even if there's perjury involved.
- KumoriNova 5y ago
  I don't want her to serve out a death sentence. I'd like her to serve a fair sentence.
- SEJeff 5y ago
  Alternatively, there were retirement funds and real people whom she defrauded, some of which needed that money to live on and now do not have it. Strong punishments befit serious crimes. More than 140 million defrauded counts as serious. Maybe she shouldn't have broken the law? Besides, she can likely get probation with good behavior after a decade or two of time served.
creato 5y ago
Can you name another "wantrepeneur" that needed deterring by this case? I don't follow startups that closely. The only example I can think of is Elon Musk's "full self driving" promises, but the gap between promise and reality is a lot smaller in that case. Even then, the claims are still mostly future timelines, not "it works now, no I can't show you, trust me!!"
- stickfigure 5y ago
  The Ozy Media guy seems similar enough. Blatantly lying to investors about the current facts of the business to extract money from them.
  - creato 5y ago
    It sounds like they are getting similar treatment to Holmes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/business/ozy-doj-sec-investigations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/business/ozy-doj-sec-inve...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  uBeam.

dragonwriter 5y ago

Unlike many state systems, in the federal system the sentence is close to the actual time you’ll serve, short of a Presidential commutation or some other special intervention. Other than up to 54 days/year good conduct time, there's not systematic early release.

madaxe_again 5y ago