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Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison during appeal of sentence
- cyclecount 4y agoI'm honestly surprised someone this wealthy and connected will actually do time.
- benburleson 4y agoThe people she pissed off are wealthier and more connected.
- Verdex 4y agoFor example, Henry Kissinger (a man I was surprised to learn is still alive) invested ~$6million.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoWow, guy is 100.
- bigbillheck 4y agoThe devil wants him up here.
- agentwiggles 4y agoDevil's probably afraid of him
- transfire 4y agoThis. If it were just a bunch of average joes that lost their money none of this would have happened. “Buyer beware” is the old adage. But this is a twofer. It also helps ensures that blood tests stay one-offs and cost top dollar for decades to come. It’s cold fusion all over again. Research in the area has suffered a convenient death blow.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoComparing this to cold-fusion seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.
- grugagag 4y agoHad she ripped off the poor she’d probably get a lesser sentence.
- Verdex 4y agoYeah, iirc her official crime is fraud with respect to investors. There were a lot of people who got bad diagnosis and none of her charges had anything to do with that. Also that one time their lab got massively contaminated with ebola dna (apparently less bad than it sounds). No charges for creating an unsafe work environment or misleading public health officials on their ability to meaningfully perform ebola tests at (I think it was) airports. Ian Gibbons unfortunate death. Silence.
- wisnoskij 4y agoWell she has already tried to run once. She will likely try again, lets wait and see if she pulls it off or not before we mark her down as actually serving time. That she is not ion custody might be an indication that she has paid off the right people to allow her to disappear into some far away country.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoStill nursing her stay-out-of-jail baby.
- tiahura 4y agoYou realize the flee to Mexico story turned out to be fake news and the prosecutors backpedaled?
- rnk 4y agoIt did seem to have happened that she bought a ticket though. News stories about her yesterday quoted the judge as explicitly referring to her buying a one way ticket. "Elizabeth Holmes' purchase of a one-way flight to Mexico was a 'bold move,' judge says" https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-plane-ticket-mexico-judge-bail-2023-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-pl...
- PopAlongKid 4y agoThat's a very generous interpretation. Of course it's what her defense attorney stated, that doesn't make it true. The prosecutor did not "backpedal". https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/theranos-trial-elizabeth-holmes-lawyers-rebut-flight-risk-mexico-claims/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/theranos-trial-eli...
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoHonestly: Why are you surprised? This trope that rich people are immune from prison is prevalent on Reddit and other social media every time someone wealthy is arrested for crimes. However I can think of far more examples of someone going to jail/prison than escaping charges. It’s a rare and noteworthy occurrence when someone is caught doing a crime and then gets away with it in a high profile case, but cynical social media commenters act like it’s every single case. The same thing happened with SBF: The Reddit/HN near-consensus was that he was too rich to ever face consequences, but then the system chugged along and is working just fine.
- postpawl 4y agoWhite collar crime is down ~26% in the last 5 years: https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/white_collar_crime/monthlyjan23/fil/ https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/bulletins/white_collar_crim... Do you think it’s because it’s more of a hassle to go after people who can afford lawyers or because white collar crime is actually down? I think it’s the former.
- Teever 4y agoIs white collar crime down or are prosecutions of white collar crime down? How can you tell the difference? I find it hard to believe that in the age of NFTs and dogecoin and whatever crypto bullshit that white collar crimes are down.
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoThe question was about people who are caught committing crimes like Holmes and SBF. I was asking why the parent commenter believes that they would be caught, charged, but then never face consequences. How often are we seeing blatant public crimes by wealthy people (like Holmes, SBF, Epstein, etc) get shrugged off the by system? The parent comment implies that rich people can do crimes in public, get caught, then not suffer the consequences. I’m asking where this belief comes from, because it’s weirdly prevalent on HN, Twitter, Reddit, and other social medias despite not reflecting the realities.
- deleted 4y ago
- HEmanZ 4y agoIt’s only a Reddit-ism that rich people don’t do time. Especially rich people who’s crime is massive fraud, the system works just fine putting them behind bars.
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]
- rnk 4y agoNo. See Donald Trump, former president. And he was doing this for decades before he became a republican god. See the numerous examples where he managed to avoid paying people for contracting, for example.
- throw_m239339 4y agoLike other said she stole from the rich. Otherwise if she defrauded poor people, it would just have been deemed "doing business" in USA... As long as you don't try to defraud richer people more connected and powerful than you anything goes in America...
- tiahura 4y agoTwo kids in the middle of all of this? Yikes.
- zulban 4y agoEven worse, given the vast hubris and fraud, and timing, I can't help but think the birth of kids was strategic. It may be hard for the kids to shake that feeling, too.
- davidwritesbugs 4y agoA reasonable suggestion given her sociopathic behaviour and I'm guessing she can self-justify the mitigatory timing and the effects on the kids.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoAll the more tragic for the kids. Hopefully she can reach out and be as decent a mother as she can from prison.
- creaturemachine 4y agoKids are born into worse situations every minute, they're just not in the news.
- i67vw3 4y agoEven a illiterate/crazy/demented person on the roadside would have told her that she would be 100% convicted. Having kids well knowing that she would be going to jail is well in the territory of 'Evil'
- kelipso 4y agoIt's the biological imperative. Framing having kids as evil in any context is disgusting.
- 4y ago
- layer8 4y agoThis is already thread #4 on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35531252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35531252 (81 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35528281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35528281 (272 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35523513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35523513 (55 comments)
- louwrentius 4y agoYou may ask: why is this news? Maybe we are so accustomed to upper class wealthy people committing white collar crime to never be held accountable that it’s news when they actually do serve prison time. Regarding SBF I’m still appalled how he’s treated with so much leeway, lesser people would be treated quite differently. I still feel like there is really different prison systems for the rich and poor. Maybe I’m wrong.
- owlglass 4y ago> [This analysis] notes that the criminal justice system is more lenient toward white-collar offenders than nonviolent property offenders and that affluent offenders are less likely to serve prison sentences than poor offenders even when they have committed the same offense. Even the US DOJ is aware of it.[1] [1] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/rich-get-richer-and-poor-get-prison-ideology-crime-and-criminal https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/rich-get...
- keldaris 4y agoHow much of that effect could be explained by the ability to afford better legal representation rather than direct preferential treatment?
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoA lot, maybe all. Still, if the rich get better legal outcomes than the poor, that's not justice, whether or not "better lawyers" is the mechanism.
- keldaris 4y agoCertainly not arguing that it's fair or just, but it's important to distinguish the mechanisms to have any hope of potentially improving the situation.
- cm2187 4y agoWhite collar criminals do serve prison time. Like the Enron guys or Madoff. What example do you have in mind of people who were sentenced but didn't? What they typically don't do is be jailed ahead of their conviction, as violent criminal are (often), which I think is rather logical.