NewsUSAThe US Attorney's Office asks for 15 years in prison and more than 800 million in compensation for the founder of Theranos

The US Attorney’s Office asks for 15 years in prison and more than 800 million in compensation for the founder of Theranos

elizabeth holmes – GLENN FAWCETT / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO

The Attorney General of the United States has requested 15 years in prison for the founder of the medical equipment company Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, for one of the most scandalous fraud cases in the recent history of Silicon Valley.

Holmes, 38, was found guilty in February of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit hidden fraud in a promise to revolutionize healthcare with her low-cost blood tests and which ended up dissolved in 2018 after questioning the validity of their methods.

The Prosecutor’s Office has also proposed to the court that it compel Holmes to fully repay the money lost by its investors, including Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Safeway Inc. for an amount that could amount to approximately 800 million euros.

According to the document of the Prosecutor’s Office, collected by Bloomberg, Holmes worked in a “field of distortion of reality” in which his search for fame justified a network of falsehoods and deceptions that risked the lives of patients.

According to prosecutors, Holmes took advantage of investors’ desire to make the world “a better place to lure them in and make them believe his lies.” The Prosecutor’s Office regretted that Holmes, throughout the process, has appeared in court “without remorse and without any responsibility.”

The government’s sentencing memorandum sets the stage for a final showdown on November 18 in federal court in San Jose, California, before US District Judge Edward Davila.

Holmes’s own lawyers, by contrast, propose that she be released from prison and sentenced to home confinement and community service so that she can continue her volunteer work counseling sexual assault victims that began in recent months.

February’s conviction ended a saga nearly two decades old since the then-Silicon Valley darling and venture capital firms founded Theranos in 2003, which at its zenith reached a valuation of $9 billion. ).

Thus, in 2015 she was named by ‘Forbes’ as the youngest self-made billionaire and graced the covers of magazines.

However, the star of Theranos and its founder began to fade at the end of that same year, when the newspaper ‘The Wall Street Journal’ questioned in several articles the supposedly revolutionary methods of biotechnology, causing the opening of investigations by regulators and finally the dissolution of the company in 2018.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Posts

Read More
More