Apparently, Elizabeth Holmes was hoping to make a break for it before heading to prison!
In case you didn’t know, the 38-year-old was convicted on January 3, 2022, for defrauding investors out of millions through her healthcare start-up Theranos. She falsely purported that its revolutionary technology could run hundreds of medical tests with just a couple of drops of blood. Things later came to a head for Holmes when the Wall Street Journal reported in 2015 that the machines she was selling, called The Edison, never really worked. Instead of using their supposed machines, the company actually used outside technology and other trickery in order to fake positive test results. As a result of the expose, federal law enforcement began to investigate Holmes and later indicted her in 2018. You know, it’s the true crime case Amanda Seyfried’s The Dropout is about!
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While on trial, her attorneys attempted to convince jurors that she didn’t know anything and never meant to defraud her investors. The disgraced founder even testified that her judgment was off because she was in the middle of an abusive relationship with former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Her lawyer, Kevin Downey, also said Holmes never cashed out stock even when the company started to hurt financially.
However, the jury wasn’t buying it. They later found her guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. This past November, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. While she has since appealed the conviction and will start her sentence on April 27, prosecutors are demanding that she not be allowed to remain free on bail. Why is that? Well, they believe Holmes is a flight risk now as she apparently made “an attempt to flee the country” last year!
According to a court filing on Thursday, the government found out that weeks after her conviction, Holmes had purchased a ticket to fly to Mexico on January 26, 2022 – with no return flight scheduled. Prosecutors claimed in the filing, People reported:
“The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that Defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip.”
When one of the prosecutors reached out to Holmes’ attorneys Lance Wade, he claimed in an email that she booked the flight for a close friend’s wedding before the jury’s verdict and was hoping to make the trip if she was found not guilty:
“The hope was that the verdict would be different and Ms. Holmes would be able to make this trip to attend the wedding of close friends in Mexico.”
He then alleged that Holmes forgot to cancel the reservation “amidst everything that has been going on” but swore to have her do it. However, prosecutors did not believe the story and felt she was trying to flee the country. The motion reportedly argued:
“Only after the government raised this unauthorized flight with defense counsel was the trip canceled.”
Per People, prosecutors said they plan on Holmes responding “that she did not in fact leave the country as scheduled” but they find “it is difficult to know with certainty” if she would have escaped without anyone stepping in. They added that “the incentive to flee has never been higher” and Holmes “has the means to act on that incentive.”
Furthermore, the filing noted that her husband, Billy Evans, did leave the country on the January 26 flight to Mexico and returned six weeks later, flying back from Cape Town, South Africa. Adding to their argument, prosecutors feel Holmes “continues to show no remorse to her victims” – especially those who lost millions in investments in Theranos.
Wow. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below!
[Image via CNBC/YouTube]
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