Elizabeth Holmes had an ambitious goal: She wanted to revolutionize healthcare by developing a device that could perform numerous medical tests with just a small amount of blood.
By 2014, the Stanford University dropout and Silicon Valley entrepreneur appeared to be well on her way to making that dream a reality. Holmes had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for her startup, Theranos, and had inked lucrative partnerships with large pharmacy and supermarket chains. She’d also been thriving personally. Magazines wrote glowing cover stories about her, and Forbes named Holmes the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire at just 30 years old.
But, behind the scenes, the situation was not so rosy, according to federal prosecutors. They accused Holmes of lying to investors, patients and the public about a medical gadget that she knew did not work, all for her own personal gain. And, in the end, a jury agreed with them— Holmes was convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison in 2022.
How Did Elizabeth Holmes Get Her Start?
Holmes served as the founder and chief executive officer of Theranos, a healthcare technology startup she launched when she was 19.
During her freshman year at Stanford University in California, Holmes began developing a portable blood analyzer. She envisioned a device that would be able to perform a variety of medical tests using just a few drops of blood from a tiny finger prick. She dropped out of college in March 2004 so she could work on the invention full time.
Holmes began raising money for her fledgling company, which she operated in “stealth mode” for nearly a decade. Then, in 2013, Theranos announced a partnership with one of the largest pharmacy chains in America—and, almost overnight, Holmes became an international media star. She appeared on the covers of various high-profile publications, including Forbes, Fortune, Inc. and The New York Times Style Magazine. In 2015, Time magazine named her one of its 100 Most Influential People.
Holmes often drew comparisons to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs because of her penchant for wearing black turtlenecks and her revolutionary ideas. But, despite all the positive press and the comparisons to her idol, Holmes struggled to get her invention to work.
In 2015, The Wall Street Journal published an investigative piece about Theranos. Journalist John Carreyrou, who later wrote a book about the company’s rise and fall, reported that Theranos only used its proprietary gadget for a small fraction of the more than 240 tests it offered. The rest were being performed using traditional blood test machines developed by other companies, which require vials of blood drawn from a patient’s arm, not a few drops from a finger prick as promised by her device.
Theranos pushed back, describing the article as “factually and scientifically erroneous,” but the company—and the success Holmes had built off of it—still began to unravel.
What Crimes Did Elizabeth Holmes Commit?
After The Wall Street Journal published its story, Theranos’s retail partners began pulling back. In 2016, after investigating the company’s California lab, federal officials revoked the facility’s operating license and banned Holmes from owning or running a medical laboratory for at least two years. They also prohibited the lab from taking Medicare and Medicaid payments. That same year, the company voided two years’ worth of test results from its devices.
In March 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her long-time boyfriend and the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, with fraud. Prosecutors alleged that the duo duped investors out of $700 million through an elaborate, multi-year scheme. Holmes was stripped of control of Theranos and agreed to return millions of her shares in the company.
“Holmes knew the [blood-testing tool] had accuracy and reliability problems, performed a limited number of tests, was slower than some competing devices, and, in some respects, could not compete with existing, more conventional machines,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated.
And yet, the government claimed, Holmes continued to tout the device’s capabilities to investors and patients.
Inside Elizabeth Holmes’s Trial
After several delays, Holmes’s criminal trial began in August 2021 in San Jose, Calif. More than 30 witnesses testified over the course of three months, including an emotional patient who’d been led to believe she was having a fourth miscarriage by an inaccurate Theranos test. In reality, the woman’s pregnancy was normal, and she went on to deliver a healthy baby.
Holmes surprised onlookers when she took the stand to testify in her own defense. During her testimony, Holmes accused Balwani of emotionally and sexually abusing her. She also said she never intended to deceive anyone and that she always believed her invention would eventually work as planned. Her attorney, Lance Wade, reiterated that sentiment.
“She worked herself to the bone for 15 years … she poured her heart and her soul into that effort,” Wade told the jury. “In the end, Theranos failed, and Ms. Holmes walked away with nothing. But failure is not a crime. Trying your hardest and coming up short is not a crime.”
The jury—composed of eight men and four women—spent 50 hours deliberating in December 2021 before returning with a verdict. The jury found Holmes guilty on four of the 11 charges she faced: one count of conspiracy to commit fraud on investors, plus three counts of committing fraud on individual investors.
Balwani faced a separate trial that began in March 2022. He was ultimately convicted on 12 felony counts.
Both Holmes and Balwani have continued to maintain their innocence.
Where Is Elizabeth Holmes Now?
In November 2022, United States District Judge Edward J. Davila sentenced Holmes to 11 years and three months in federal prison, as well as three years of supervision after her release. Balwani, meanwhile, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison. Holmes and Balwani were also ordered to pay more than $452 million in restitution to Theranos’s victims.
At the time of sentencing, Holmes was pregnant with her second child with partner William “Billy” Evans, so her incarceration was delayed. After Holmes giving birth to her daughter, Invicta, in early 2023, she started her sentence in May of that year at a minimum security women’s facility in Bryan, Texas. Since then, Holmes has had her sentence reduced twice—first, by two years in July 2023 and then by another four months in May 2024. She’s now expected to be released in August 2032.
Holmes appealed her fraud conviction in 2024, citing various legal missteps during the trial. But a federal appeals court ultimately rejected her arguments.
Holmes has largely kept a low profile while in prison, but in February 2025, she gave her first interview from behind bars to People. “It’s surreal,” she told the publication. “It’s been hell and torture to be here.”
Holmes spends much of her time working as a reentry clerk, a paid position that involves helping women who are about to be released prepare for their next steps. She’s also been working as a law clerk, teaching French classes and counseling inmates who have survived sexual assault.
Despite all she’s been through, Holmes has not given up on the dream that landed her in prison in the first place: inventing new medical devices to improve healthcare. When she gets out of prison, Holmes hopes to once again work in the field of healthcare technology.
“There is not a day I have not continued to work on my research and inventions,” she told People.
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