Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Anne Holmes
Born:	February 3, 1984 Washington, D.C.
Charges:	Conspiracy to commit fraud on investors, Wire fraud
Sentence:	135 months (reduced with good time credit)
Facility:	FPC Bryan
Status:	Incarcerated

Elizabeth Anne Holmes (born February 3, 1984) is an American former biotechnology entrepreneur and convicted fraudster who was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for defrauding investors in Theranos, Inc., the blood-testing startup she founded, of hundreds of millions of dollars. Once celebrated as a visionary entrepreneur and the world's youngest self-made female billionaire, Holmes built Theranos on claims that the company's proprietary technology could perform comprehensive blood tests from a single finger prick—claims that were largely false. The company raised over $700 million from investors and was valued at $9 billion at its peak before investigations revealed that its technology did not work as represented. In January 2022, a federal jury convicted Holmes on four counts of fraud against investors, and she began serving her sentence at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas in May 2023. Her appeals have been rejected, and she is currently scheduled for release in 2032.

Current Status (December 2025)

Elizabeth Holmes Status
Current Location:	FPC Bryan, Texas
Sentence:	135 months (11 years, 3 months)
Reported to Prison:	May 30, 2023
Time Served:	~31 months (as of Dec 2025)
Good Time Credits:	~28 months earned
Projected Halfway House:	December 2029
BOP Scheduled Release:	December 30, 2031
Appeal Status:	Denied by 9th Circuit (Feb 2025)
Pardon Campaign:	Active (via social media, Dec 2025)

As of December 2025, Elizabeth Holmes remains incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, where she works as a reentry clerk helping fellow inmates prepare for release. She has earned substantial good time credits that have reduced her effective sentence by approximately two years. Her appeals have been exhausted at the circuit level, with the Ninth Circuit denying her request for rehearing in May 2025. Her only remaining option is a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our Federal Sentence Calculator estimates Holmes will transfer to a halfway house around December 2029 and be released from Bureau of Prisons custody on or around December 2030.

Summary

Elizabeth Holmes became one of the most prominent examples of Silicon Valley fraud when the massive gap between Theranos's promises and its actual capabilities was exposed in 2015 and 2016. For years, Holmes had presented herself as a wunderkind inventor who would revolutionize healthcare by making blood testing faster, cheaper, and less invasive. She cultivated a distinctive image—black turtlenecks reminiscent of Steve Jobs, an unnaturally deep voice, and an intense, unblinking gaze—and assembled a board of directors and roster of investors that read like a who's who of American business and politics.

The reality, as federal prosecutors established at trial, was that Holmes knowingly misrepresented Theranos's technology to investors, partners, and regulators. The company's proprietary blood-testing devices, called "Edison" machines, could not reliably perform the tests Holmes claimed they could. To fulfill promises to partners like Walgreens, Theranos secretly used conventional blood-testing equipment from other manufacturers, sometimes running tests on diluted samples from finger pricks that produced unreliable results. When employees raised concerns about the technology's limitations, they were often ignored, marginalized, or forced out.

Holmes's conviction and sentence sent a message about accountability in Silicon Valley, where the culture of "fake it till you make it" had sometimes been used to excuse or even celebrate exaggerated claims by startup founders. Her case demonstrated that there are legal limits to promotional puffery, especially when it crosses into material misrepresentation to investors and endangers patients who relied on inaccurate test results for medical decisions.

Background

Early Life and Education

Elizabeth Anne Holmes was born on February 3, 1984, in Washington, D.C. Her father, Christian Holmes IV, worked for government agencies including USAID and later for energy companies, while her mother, Noel Anne Daoust, worked as a congressional committee staffer. Holmes grew up in Houston, Texas, and showed ambition and intelligence from an early age, reportedly telling family members as a child that she wanted to be a billionaire.

Holmes attended St. John's School, an elite private school in Houston, where she excelled academically. She enrolled at Stanford University in 2002 to study chemical engineering. During her freshman and sophomore years, she worked in labs and became interested in developing new diagnostic technologies. In 2003, she filed her first patent application, which would eventually be granted for a wearable drug-delivery device.

In 2004, after completing her sophomore year, Holmes dropped out of Stanford to found Real-Time Cures, the company that would later become Theranos. She was 19 years old.

Building Theranos

Holmes founded her company with the ambitious goal of revolutionizing blood testing. The premise was appealing: traditional blood tests required drawing multiple vials of blood from a patient's arm, sending them to a lab, and waiting days for results. Holmes claimed that Theranos (a portmanteau of "therapy" and "diagnosis") could perform hundreds of tests from just a few drops of blood obtained from a finger prick, with results available in hours.

To build Theranos, Holmes recruited investors and advisers from the highest levels of American business and politics. The company's board eventually included former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former CDC Director William Foege, and former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, among others. Major investors included Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family (founders of Walmart), and the DeVos family, and the company raised over $700 million in total funding.

At its peak valuation in 2014, Theranos was worth an estimated $9 billion, making Holmes, who owned approximately half the company, worth roughly $4.5 billion on paper—making her the world's youngest self-made female billionaire according to Forbes. Holmes appeared on magazine covers, delivered TED talks, and was celebrated as a visionary who would transform healthcare.

The Technology's Failures

Behind the scenes, Theranos was struggling to make its technology work. The company's proprietary "Edison" blood-testing devices had significant reliability problems and could not perform nearly the range of tests that Holmes claimed. Internal documents and testimony from former employees would later reveal that Theranos executives, including Holmes and her second-in-command Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, knew about these limitations but continued to make false claims to investors and partners.

To fulfill its partnership with Walgreens, which began offering Theranos testing at stores in Arizona and California, the company secretly used conventional blood-testing equipment purchased from other manufacturers for most tests. When it did use its own devices, it sometimes diluted finger-prick samples to obtain enough blood volume—a practice that could compromise accuracy. Some Theranos test results were so unreliable that patients received false indications of serious medical conditions, causing unnecessary distress and potentially dangerous medical decisions.

Indictment, Prosecution, and Sentencing

Investigative Journalism and Collapse

Theranos's carefully constructed image began to crumble in October 2015 when John Carreyrou, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, published an investigation revealing that the company's technology did not work as claimed. Carreyrou's reporting, based in part on tips from former Theranos employees, exposed the gap between the company's promises and its actual capabilities.

The Wall Street Journal investigation triggered a cascade of regulatory actions and additional investigations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) inspected Theranos's laboratory and found serious deficiencies, eventually revoking its lab certification. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into potential securities fraud, and the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation.

Theranos shut down in September 2018, and Holmes was indicted by a federal grand jury the same month on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The indictment alleged that Holmes and Balwani had engaged in a scheme to defraud investors, doctors, and patients by making false claims about Theranos's technology and business performance.

Trial and Conviction

Holmes's trial began in August 2021 in federal court in San Jose, California, before U.S. District Judge Edward Davila. The trial lasted approximately four months and included testimony from former Theranos employees, investors who had lost money, and patients who had received unreliable test results. Holmes took the stand in her own defense, testifying over several days about her belief in Theranos's technology and alleging that Balwani, who was also her romantic partner, had controlled her through emotional abuse.

On January 3, 2022, the jury convicted Holmes on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud against investors and three counts of wire fraud involving specific investors. The jury acquitted her on charges related to defrauding patients and on some other investor-related counts. The conviction established that Holmes had knowingly deceived investors, though the acquittals suggested the jury was not convinced she had the same intent to defraud patients.

Sentencing

On November 18, 2022, Judge Davila sentenced Holmes to 135 months (11 years and 3 months) in federal prison. The sentence was below the maximum Holmes faced but substantially higher than the defense's request for home confinement. Holmes was also ordered to pay $452 million in restitution jointly with Balwani, including $125 million to Rupert Murdoch, who had invested in Theranos.

At sentencing, Judge Davila noted the seriousness of Holmes's fraud and its impact on investors who had trusted her. "She had the brilliance to make it happen, she had the network to make it happen, and she chose the path of fraud," the judge stated.

Balwani, who was tried separately, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison.

Prison Experience

Holmes reported to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas on May 30, 2023, to begin serving her sentence. The facility is a minimum-security prison camp that houses female inmates. Since arriving, Holmes has had time reduced from her sentence through the federal good time credit system, with approximately two years shaved off in July 2023 and an additional four months reduced in May 2024.

In prison, Holmes works as a reentry clerk, earning 31 cents an hour helping fellow inmates prepare resumes and apply for jobs and government benefits. She maintains a daily exercise routine. Holmes, now a mother of two young children (born in 2021 and 2023, the latter shortly before she reported to prison), is separated from her family during her incarceration.

Holmes is currently scheduled for release in 2032, though the exact date may vary based on additional good time credits or other factors.

Appeals

Holmes has pursued multiple appeals challenging her conviction and sentence. In February 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her arguments and affirmed her conviction, finding no legal errors in her trial. In May 2025, the Ninth Circuit denied her request for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel.

Holmes's only remaining avenue for appeal is the U.S. Supreme Court, though the Court accepts only a small percentage of petitions for review.

2025 Pardon Campaign

In late 2025, Holmes launched what observers characterized as a campaign for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump through social media activity. Her X (formerly Twitter) account, dormant since 2015, resumed posting in August 2025. The account states that posts are "Mostly my words, posted by others," as federal inmates are not permitted direct internet access. Holmes's husband Billy Evans links to her X account from his own profile, suggesting he or someone else close to her is posting on her behalf.

The content of Holmes's posts marked a dramatic shift from her previous public persona. Her 2015 posts had featured praise for influential women such as Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, and Melinda Gates. By late 2025, her account was posting overtly pro-Trump and pro-MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) content, including references to RFK Jr.'s health agenda, criticism of Trump opponents like New York Attorney General Letitia James, praise for Trump-aligned pastor Mark Burns, and arguments that Democrats prioritize "foreign nationals over our citizens."

Public relations consultant Sam Singer, reviewing the account's posts, concluded: "Elizabeth Holmes is openly seeking a pardon from President Trump, hoping that by a combination of sucking up and perhaps digital fawning that she will get it." Singer also noted that the strategy might be counterproductive, as "it also plays right into the narrative about Elizabeth Holmes that she's a con woman."

Trump's pardon history provides some basis for optimism on Holmes's part. According to a U.S. Justice Department list, Trump's 69 second-term pardons as of late 2025 included 19 people convicted of fraud. Professor Graham Dodds noted that while political alignment hasn't traditionally played a major role in pardon decisions, "emphatically it has been with Trump. He's happy to pardon people who are politically simpatico."

However, one significant obstacle may work against Holmes: among Theranos's investor-victims was Betsy DeVos, Trump's former Education Secretary and a prominent Republican donor. Whether this connection would influence Trump's consideration of any pardon request remains unclear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What did Elizabeth Holmes do to go to prison?

Holmes was convicted in January 2022 on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors in her blood-testing startup Theranos. The company claimed its proprietary Edison device could perform over 200 medical diagnostic tests using only a few drops of blood from a finger prick—a revolutionary breakthrough that would make blood testing faster, cheaper, and less painful than traditional methods requiring full vials drawn from veins. In reality, the technology never worked as advertised. Evidence at trial showed Holmes knew the devices produced unreliable results but continued to raise over $700 million from investors including Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family, Betsy DeVos, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison by making false claims about the technology's capabilities, fabricating demonstration results, and overstating the company's financials and contracts.

Q: How did Elizabeth Holmes get caught?

The unraveling of Theranos began with two courageous whistleblowers: Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung, both young laboratory employees who independently discovered that the company's blood-testing technology did not work as claimed. Shultz, whose grandfather George Shultz (former Secretary of State) sat on the Theranos board, joined the company in 2013 and quickly observed data manipulation and a culture of secrecy. Cheung, a recent UC Berkeley graduate, witnessed lab technicians routinely deleting data "outliers" to make quality control tests appear to pass. Both separately contacted Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, who published a devastating exposé in October 2015 revealing that Theranos was secretly running most of its tests on conventional third-party machines rather than its proprietary Edison devices. Cheung also filed a complaint with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, triggering a federal inspection. Despite intense legal pressure from Theranos—Holmes hired powerhouse attorney David Boies to threaten the whistleblowers with lawsuits and deployed private investigators to follow them—Shultz and Cheung persisted. Carreyrou later credited them as essential to his reporting, stating he could not have broken the story without them.

Q: How long is Elizabeth Holmes in prison for?

Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months (135 months) in federal prison in November 2022. She began serving her sentence on May 30, 2023, at Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security facility approximately 100 miles northwest of Houston, Texas. Through good conduct credits and participation in prison programs, her projected release date has been reduced multiple times—first to December 29, 2032, then to August 16, 2032. Our Federal Sentence Calculator estimates Elizabeth Holmes will serve about 78.75 months in federal prison and transfer to halfway house around December 22, 2029. She will then serve 12 months in the halfway house or home confinement and be released from Bureau of Prisons custody on or around December 22, 2030.

Q: What prison is Elizabeth Holmes in?

Holmes is incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp Bryan (FPC Bryan), a minimum-security women's facility located in Bryan, Texas, approximately 100 miles northwest of Houston. The facility primarily houses non-violent female offenders and offers various rehabilitative programs. Holmes works as a reentry clerk, earning approximately 31 cents per hour to help other women inmates prepare for release. She also attends weekly therapy for PTSD and has participated in or joined waitlists for programs including trauma treatment and counseling. The facility allows visitation, and Holmes has been photographed during family visits with her husband Billy Evans and their two young children. Other notable inmates at FPC Bryan have included former "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star Jen Shah, who was also serving a sentence for wire fraud.

Q: Did Elizabeth Holmes fake her voice?

This remains one of the most debated aspects of Holmes's persona. Multiple former Theranos employees and associates have claimed that Holmes's distinctive deep baritone voice was an affectation she adopted to project authority in the male-dominated tech industry. Former coworker Ana Arriola told the ABC podcast "The Dropout" that at a company party, Holmes "fell out of character and exposed that that was not necessarily her true voice." Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, who broke the Theranos story, cited sources who witnessed Holmes "forget to put on the baritone" and slip into "a more natural-sounding young woman's voice." A 2005 NPR interview is often cited as evidence, showing Holmes briefly speaking in a higher register before shifting to her signature deep tone—a difference audio analysts have measured at approximately 100 hertz. Stanford professor Dr. Phyllis Gardner, who taught Holmes, has stated Holmes did not speak with a low voice when she knew her as a student. However, Holmes's family has told media outlets that her deep voice is natural and "runs in the family, including her grandmother." Research on voice and leadership suggests people perceive lower voices as more dominant and authoritative, which may explain why Holmes would have adopted such a speaking style if it was indeed affected.

Q: Who is Elizabeth Holmes's husband, and is she still married?

Holmes is married to William "Billy" Evans, an heir to the Evans Hotel Group, a family-owned chain of luxury hotels in the San Diego area. The couple met at a Fleet Week charity party in 2017—after Theranos's fraud had already been exposed but before Holmes's criminal indictment—and married in a private ceremony in 2019. Evans, who is approximately eight years younger than Holmes, holds an economics degree from MIT and previously worked at Luminar Technologies, an autonomous vehicle sensor company. The couple has two children together: a son, William Holmes Evans, born in July 2021 (which delayed Holmes's trial), and a daughter, Invicta, born in early 2023 (shortly before Holmes reported to prison). Evans's family reportedly did not initially approve of the relationship, with sources describing them as believing he had been "brainwashed." Nevertheless, Evans has remained steadfastly supportive throughout Holmes's trial and imprisonment, regularly visiting her in prison with their children. In May 2025, NPR reported that Evans had raised millions of dollars for a new AI-powered biotech startup called Haemanthus (Greek for "blood flower"), and that Holmes has been informally advising him on the project from prison—raising eyebrows given her fraud conviction in the same field.

Q: When will Elizabeth Holmes be released from prison?

According to Bureau of Prisons records, Holmes is currently scheduled for release on December 30, 2031. This date has been reduced from her original sentence through good conduct time credits and participation in prison programs. Our Federal Sentence Calculator estimates she may transfer to a halfway house around December 2029. After release from BOP custody, she will be required to serve three years of supervised release. However, if Holmes receives a presidential pardon, she could be released immediately.

Q: Is Elizabeth Holmes seeking a pardon from Trump?

According to public relations experts and media reports, Holmes appears to be actively campaigning for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. Her X (formerly Twitter) account, dormant since 2015, resumed posting in August 2025 with content that PR consultant Sam Singer characterized as "openly seeking a pardon" through "sucking up and perhaps digital fawning." The account posts pro-Trump and pro-MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) content, references to RFK Jr.'s health agenda, and criticism of Trump opponents. Since federal inmates cannot access the internet directly, the posts are made on her behalf, likely by her husband Billy Evans. One potential obstacle is that Betsy DeVos, Trump's former Education Secretary, was among Theranos's defrauded investors.

Q: What happened to the whistleblowers after they exposed Theranos?

Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung both faced significant personal and professional consequences for their decision to speak out. Theranos hired powerhouse attorney David Boies to threaten both with lawsuits alleging they had leaked trade secrets. Holmes also deployed private investigators to conduct surveillance on them. Shultz's father reportedly began sleeping with a knife under his pillow due to fear of retaliation. Perhaps most painfully for Shultz, his grandfather George Shultz—the former Secretary of State who sat on the Theranos board—initially sided with Holmes over his own grandson, telling Tyler he was wrong. The two had a falling out that lasted months, though they eventually reconciled before George Shultz's death in 2021. Cheung described the three years after coming forward as "some of the hardest years of my life" and eventually moved to Hong Kong to escape the scrutiny. However, both have since rebuilt their careers. Shultz returned to Stanford, founded his own biotech company (Flux Biosciences) in 2017, and later started The Healthyr Company in 2022. Cheung co-founded Ethics in Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization focused on embedding ethical practices in startups. When Holmes was convicted in January 2022, Shultz celebrated by "popping champagne" with his family, telling NPR: "This story has been unfolding for pretty much my entire adult life."

Q: Why was Elizabeth Holmes convicted of defrauding investors but not patients?

The jury found Holmes guilty on four counts related to defrauding investors but acquitted her on four counts related to defrauding patients. Legal analysts have suggested several reasons for this split verdict. The investor fraud case was more straightforward: prosecutors presented evidence that Holmes made specific, quantifiable false statements to sophisticated investors about Theranos's technology, revenue projections, and business contracts—claims that were demonstrably untrue and which directly induced those investors to provide hundreds of millions of dollars. The patient fraud case was more complex. While Theranos's technology clearly produced inaccurate test results that harmed patients who received incorrect diagnoses, proving Holmes's direct criminal intent to defraud individual patients was more difficult. Many patients may not have known their tests were processed by Theranos equipment, and the chain of causation between Holmes's statements and harm to specific patients was less direct than with investors. Additionally, some jurors may have distinguished between Holmes's role as a business executive making claims to investors versus her responsibility for clinical laboratory operations.

Q: What is Elizabeth Holmes doing in prison?

According to a February 2025 interview with People magazine—her first interview since entering prison—Holmes works as a reentry clerk, helping other female inmates prepare for their release. She earns approximately 31 cents per hour. Holmes attends weekly therapy for PTSD and has participated in or joined waitlists for every rehabilitation program recommended by prison personnel, including trauma treatment and counseling. She told People that she continues to write patents for new inventions and intends to return to the healthcare technology industry after her release. Holmes described her time in prison as "hell and torture" and said being separated from her two young children "shatters my world." She maintains her innocence, stating "Theranos failed. But failure is not fraud." Holmes also reportedly collects breast milk for her daughter during her incarceration, describing it as "a way to love her in here." In 2025, it was reported that Holmes has been informally advising her husband Billy Evans on his new biotech startup from prison, though she has stated she will not take a formal role in the company.

Q: Is Elizabeth Holmes a sociopath?

This question has been widely debated by media commentators, psychologists, and the public, though no formal diagnosis has been publicly disclosed. Holmes has never been diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder (the clinical term for what is colloquially called sociopathy) in any court or medical filing. During her trial, Holmes's defense team presented evidence of psychological trauma, including her claim that she was sexually assaulted while at Stanford and her testimony that former boyfriend and Theranos COO Sunny Balwani emotionally and sexually abused her during their relationship (which Balwani has denied). Some observers point to Holmes's ability to maintain a potentially fake deep voice for years, her apparent lack of remorse, and her continued insistence on her innocence despite overwhelming evidence as signs of sociopathic traits. Others note that ambition, deception, and rationalization of wrongdoing—while morally troubling—do not necessarily indicate a personality disorder. Holmes's ability to deceive sophisticated investors, board members including former Secretaries of State, and media outlets for over a decade does suggest an unusual capacity for sustained manipulation, but whether this rises to the level of a clinical diagnosis remains speculative.

Public Statements and Positions

Throughout her prosecution and afterward, Holmes has maintained that she believed in Theranos's technology and did not intend to defraud anyone. At trial, she testified that she had worked tirelessly to make the company's technology succeed and that she genuinely believed in its potential. She also alleged that Balwani had exerted psychological control over her, though prosecutors argued this was an attempt to deflect responsibility.

In a 2025 interview from prison, Holmes stated that she still intended to revolutionize the medical testing industry—suggesting she has not abandoned her belief in the underlying concept, even if Theranos failed to achieve it. This statement drew criticism from those who viewed it as evidence that she still did not fully appreciate the harm caused by her fraud.

Terminology

• Wire Fraud: A federal crime involving the use of electronic communications to execute a scheme to defraud.

• Securities Fraud: Illegal practices that induce investors to make decisions based on false information.

• Good Time Credit: Reduction in a federal prison sentence for good behavior and participation in programs.

• Restitution: Court-ordered payment from the offender to victims to compensate for financial losses caused by the crime.

See also

• Billy McFarland
• Prison Consultants
• White Collar Crime