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Elizabeth Holmes is going to prison – with a $500M bill
- petesergeant 3y agoDoes anyone have a clear and simple answer on why she got two years less than Sunny Balwani?
- dumbfoundded 3y agoBest analysis I've seen: "Balwani might have been perceived as someone “a little bit older and wiser” who should’ve known better." https://qz.com/theranos-sunny-balwani-jail-time-elizabeth-holmes-1849868036 https://qz.com/theranos-sunny-balwani-jail-time-elizabeth-ho...
- batmaniam 3y agoIf the court system can try kids as adults for their heinous crimes, then the "should've known better" reasoning doesn't stand up. Plus she went to fancy schools, and was highly educated. She already "knew" better than most people living in the US. They both should have gotten longer jail sentences, their convictions should have been about the people she harmed with her machines. Instead it was all about how she and Balwani mislead/ripped off their investors (who didn't even do their own work in due diligence). Now Balwani is serving at a Club-Fed prison. The $452 million restitution she's been slapped with? Just for investors, it seems. Can anyone find an article that states actual people being victims? Nearly all news reports say the restitution is for "victims", but then the victims are just Safeway, Rupert Murdoch, Walgreens... etc. There is no justice here. Not in the ruling, not in the sentencing, not even for real people. "Being wiser" or "older" is just a BS made-up reasoning. Let's at least not sugar coat why she got less of a ruling than Balwani. It's enough of an insult to those who were actually affected to have seen how this all played out.
- petesergeant 3y ago> Can anyone find an article that states actual people being victims? Here's one: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/theranos-test-gave-false-miscarriage-diagnosis-witness-testifies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/theranos-test-gave-false-mis... My understanding is that there were a few at the trial
- batmaniam 3y agoYes, they used these employees statements to establish wrongdoings that Theranos committed... for the sole purpose of proving that the investors were defrauded. Not for people who had incorrect results, who then had to make hard life decisions based on it, not to mention the emotional trauma that this can inflict. By "victims", I meant it in the context of the restitution. None of that half billion dollars that she owes goes to these people. All the articles I've read say she has to pay her victims in the title. But if you read the articles closely, they just say it's to pay back investors.
- pests 3y agoI understand your questioning of the situation but I think its pretty clear. She was not convicted of anything related to patients or their results so of course they are not her victims.
- slaw 3y ago[flagged]
- frozenport 3y agoJeffrey Schenk, an assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor, said in court on Wednesday that Mr. Balwani should receive a longer sentence than Ms. Holmes because he oversaw Theranos’s lab, which endangered patients. “Mr. Balwani had significant autonomy in running the lab. He made decisions that directly impacted the information that was communicated to patients,” Mr. Schenk said. The lab, he added, was the source of “some of the greatest harm.”] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230307122401/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/technology/sunny-balwani-theranos-sentenced.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230307122401/https://www.nytim...
- telltruth 3y agoBalwani's story is quite amazing. The dude won startup lottery and made enough money that he wouldn't have to worry rest of the life. He had a mansions, sports cars and lived his life happily. One day this young women walks in his life and wants help with her startup. The dude throws away everything to make her startup success, burns midnight oil and torches ethics. He is much older and thinks he is in love. Only later to realize that the woman was simply using him and chewed him out as soon as his purpose was done. They became so adversarial in the end that they literally campaigned to have each other in prison. Important Life Lesson for Everyone: If you made your money, do NOT fall in love (or, god forbid, marry without iron-clade prenup).
- rapsey 3y agoYou are throwing the baby out with the bathwater there.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoStill better than bringing a baby into this world as s defense tactic in court.
- fastball 3y agoDefinitely don't think it is clear cut that he was the one being used.
- quantified 3y agoDo fall in love. If you're rich enough, you can survive on half your wealth nicely, but in that case do take the prenup because you are a financial target. Don't lose your ethics. He deserves quite a bit of his downfall.
- simonjgreen 3y agoI think the important life lesson is: do NOT deliberately grossly defraud people
- quickthrower2 3y agoPrenup doesn't protect you from the US justice system though.
- loandbehold 3y agoThere's a believe that he was the one pushing her to commit this fraud.
- throwaway1289 3y agoShe's white and he's not
- jjeaff 3y agoShe's also a woman. Women tend to get lighter sentences, especially if they have children.
- Nursie 3y agoGood! It’s amazing to me just how long wealthy people in the US can string this stuff out and jump on every last technicality for months on end. I know she wasn’t convicted of the harm she did (and would have continued to do) to the public, but she clearly is a danger and has learned nothing. Needs to be in jail.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoShe's already demonstrated she is a flight risk dumb enough to buy a one way ticket.
- coding123 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Guzba 3y agoOff the top of my head, Trevor Milton? I think you may have not tried hard enough to invalidate this thesis.
- DougBTX 3y agoCan’t get much more tech CEO than Sam Bankman-Fried
- bushbaba 3y agoInstead of dropping conspiracies one should ask for proof. The fact you couldn't name a single male CEO who had a similar level of Fraud should be proof enough the court system treated this fairly-ish compared to past levels of fraud. This wasn't just product fraud. It wasn't just money lost. Non-investors had their lives ruined from wrong medical advice being given. People died as a result. I think the bhopal disaster is a rough comparison for how gross negligance that cannot be attributed to 'mistakes' do lead to convictions. https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/eight-people-convicted-on-criminal-charges-for-1984-bhopal-disaster/ https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/eight-people-convicted-on-...
- blitzar 3y ago> This wasn't just product fraud. It wasn't just money lost. Non-investors had their lives ruined from wrong medical advice being given. People died as a result. Th court disagrees with you. U.S. v. Holmes, et al. ended in January 2022 when Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors, and acquitted of defrauding patients.
- nonrepeating 3y agoBernie Ebbers did 13 years. More recently and much more relevant, Zachary Apte and Jessica Richman of uBiome have been indicted and are fugitives.
- andrewstuart 3y agoWill she still be wealthy?
- nonrepeating 3y agoHer wealth was all on paper, that paper being equity in Theranos. By the time she was indicted her net worth was listed as zero.
- rkagerer 3y agoIn that case will this restitution likely never be paid?
- azernik 3y agoSome might, if they go after her new husband's rather substantial property.
- highwaylights 3y agoCan they do that? Genuinely unsure how US law works in this scenario. If the assets are in her husbands name, and are clearly not proceeds of the Theranos saga, can they be seized? (Especially given that they came into her life after all of this). My assumption would have been that she’d essentially remain penniless in her own name until after any limitations of claims had expired (20 years I believe from elsewhere in the thread) and the debt had been written off. Also does she spend the 11 years in jail or is it a half in/half out thing? I imagine there’s a lot of ways this still gets argued down to a much shorter time period but admittedly IANAL.
- jjeaff 3y agoI think you usually can go after the spouse's assets. But it seems less likely to be a viable avenue in this case since she met and married him after she was indicted.
- 3y ago
- chopete3 3y ago>> Charges for which Holmes was convicted in January. These included three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Naive question: Why do they call this wire fraud? Where is the wire in this fraud?
- taneq 3y agoProbably to telegraph the fact that it’s not using actual physical paper documents?
- chopete3 3y agoThere is an appropriate name like Investment Fraud. Just wondering why don't use it and lump everything into under wire fraud which makes it seem a petty crime.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- taneq 3y agoBecause names are sticky and you don’t need generalised category names if there’s only one thing in the category. I’d imagine wire fraud was named when telegraph wires were the only long distance instant communication.
- SkyMarshal 3y agoI am not a lawyer but I believe if the fraud involves any kind of electronic communications, like sending a term sheet to an investor via email, then it can be charged as wire fraud.
- djur 3y agoAs opposed to mail fraud -- basically any kind of fraud committed via electronic communication. At the time they would have been thinking of telegrams and phones, but the statute covers fraudulent materials "transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication", so that covers the Internet as well.
- Throw73849 3y ago[dead]
- todd3834 3y ago10 years used to feel like a really long time to me. Now that I have two young kids the idea of missing out on 10 years of their life growing up is in the impossible to handle part of my brain. I feel bad for everyone effected and yes even her.
- samrus 3y agoWell then they she shouldn't have decided to get pregnant as sson as the jury decided to convene. Obviously it sucks for the kids. But they're rich. They'll have good foster care. And she doesn't care that she can't see them, she knee that was a risk when she had them, she took that gamble to try to stay out of prison. This is psychopath we are talking about. And letting her off the hook because she has kids is going to encourage every other psychopath to do the same. That'll create more orphans in the long term.
- mnky9800n 3y agoShe likely had children because she thought it would make her more sympathetic. Unlikely given how she acts and treats all around her that the children are more than pawns in her game.
- a_bonobo 3y agoImagine being her child; imagine growing up knowing that in all likelihood, you only exist because your mother wanted to stay out of prison.
- latency-guy2 3y agoGet in line with the billions of other people with unsatisfactory lives.
- mnky9800n 3y agoi suppose the good news is her child will always have the money to pay for all the therapy to handle those issues herself.
- xrayarx 3y agoIt is not a real prison. She will probably go to Bryan Minimum Security [1][2]. No fences. Dormitories. Visitations. Gym, etc. The fine is large, but symbolic. From the article, chance of full recovery is very low. No mention, if this would be converted to house arrest at some point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Camp,_Bryan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Camp,_Bryan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes
- atoav 3y agoWhere I live the goal of prison is rehabilitation, not the ever greater fulfilment of a christianity-induced punishment fetish (and there are studies that support that the former is more effective at returning you functioning, tax-paying members of society once the sentence is over). So while I agree that in the US white colar criminals tend to suspiciously often get the lighter punishment and that this fact is a glaring injustice, I think the US prison system as a whole is so utterly misconstructed, that this cricicism is a drop in a vast ocean of injustices.
- WalterBright 3y agoWhy shouldn't nonviolent offenders go to a minimum security prison?
- atoav 3y agoDid I say that they should not? The point based system you have for assigning people to prison types might look fair, but coupled with predictive policing (aka positive feedback) and the police-tendency to let crimes slip for some demographics and not others, it leads to injustice.
- madsbuch 3y agointeresting that it sounds like a bad thing that the prison is minimum security. As a Dane the American prison system baffles me. it obviously doesn't work and has commercial interests to the entire countrys detriment. yet I still feel this schadenfreude and the sentiment that sentences should be rougher and longer. where does this societal incongruence come from?
- hintymad 3y agoNow do SBF
- g0ran 3y ago> ...pair jointly responsible for repaying $452,047,268 (£361,533,844) to Theranos investors defrauded by the pair. Alright, how do they repay this?
- runeks 3y agoThey almost certainly won't.
- g0ran 3y agoYeah, but how does this work once she gets out of prison? A percentage off her paycheck every week 'til she dies?
- quickthrower2 3y agoMaybe something like this: https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxm5n/gary-bowser-small-apartment-owes-nintendo-10-million https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxm5n/gary-bowser-small-apa...
- HDThoreaun 3y agoHer husband is an heir. She will never work again.
- quickthrower2 3y agoHa ha, on the nose! Only satire can say it like it is, right. > "'Liz' learns you don't screw over rich people"