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Biotech The Courts

Court Unanimously Denies Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes' Request For Rehearing (cnbc.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the request-denied dept.
Elizabeth Holmes has lost her bid to have the appeal of her 2022 fraud conviction reheard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as her final option. She and former Theranos executive Sunny Balwani remain liable for $452 million in restitution, while Holmes continues serving her 11-year sentence. CNBC reports: The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Holmes' request for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel that upheld her conviction. At the same time, the court said no judge on the circuit court had asked for a vote on whether to have the full court rehear the appeal.

Holmes, 41, was sentenced in January 2023 to 11 years and 3 months in prison after being found guilty of four counts of wire fraud in January 2022. She was found guilty of deceiving investors about the capabilities of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003. The company crumbled after a Wall Street Journal story outlined the firm's struggles and shut down in 2018.

Court Unanimously Denies Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes' Request For Rehearing More | Reply

Court Unanimously Denies Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes' Request For Rehearing

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  • She joins a very exclusive club (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday May 09, 2025 @09:35PM (#65365551)
    Along with Bernie Madoff and George Santos she fucked with the real money people.

    Here in America you can rip off all the little ladies you want but if you make a fool out of somebody with a billion dollars your ass is grass. She's honestly lucky she's not going to die in prison.

    Just like how nobody cared how many peasant girls countess bathory killed but as soon as she went after Noble girls she was bricked up.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      nobody cared how many peasant girls countess bathory killed

      Wow. Had to go back to the 16th century for that one, huh? Until a few years ago, you had grooming gangs using little white girls all over the UK, and no one cared at all. They still don't. Caring means looking at certain unseeable demographic peculiarities.

      • At least make it fun. Like the furry litter boxes.

        And no matter how much you suck up to Trump he's not going to let you join in on the Epstein parties. And if you try to throw one yourself you going to go to jail. And it still won't be a drag queen.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        Until a few years ago, you had grooming gangs using little white girls all over the UK

        Do you mean Catholics, or The Aristocracy?

        • Apparently, this [bbc.com].

          The inquiry into the Telford abuse scandal, which published its report in 2022, found police dismissive of claims of abuse, with one saying "these girls had chosen to go with, I don't know, 'bad boys'".

          Another reported "[Child] has no credibility - very often it is her word aginst [sic] the perpetrators and very often she does not co-operate."

          "Believe she is making life choices. There are never any witnesses or 3rd parties."

          Because children, often from deprived backgrounds, were dismissed as "lacking in credibility" their abusers were allowed to get away with subjecting them to horrific abuse, for too long.

    • People take money from rich people all the time without consequences, that's how venture capital works.

      She took money from rich people in the wrong way.

      • People take money from rich people all the time without consequences, that's how venture capital works. She took money from rich people in the wrong way.

        She got caught up in a storm. Her original idea had merit, but a fatal flaw. However, the checkbox people wanted "The first self made female billionaire". That was obvious in so many interviews on News Channels. They concentrated on that, Theranos was almost an incidental thing.

        So her persona that she cultivated was an added inducement. Sort of like "She dressed like Steve Jobs, so she must be good!"

        So the prominent people who wanted that first self made female billionaire, pretty much threw money at Th

        • ... caught up in a storm? lol. She was the storm. I can only assume you're basing this flawed opinion on the made-for-TV fictional summary of events which paint her as wide eyed woman who tried to brave her way forward in a man's world when in reality she was manipulating people from day one. She knew early on her promised couldn't deliver but she continued to dig her hole, continued to give people fake medical results, continued to put lives at risk, all for money and ego. I mean, seriously, this is a woma

    • Whether or not your rant about rich people is true, she fully deserved every year of her sentence. I don't excuse her ONE BIT for ripping off "the evil rich people." She also hurt a whole lot of regular people, either tricking them into thinking they were disease-free, or tricking them into thinking they had diseases they didn't.

      • Whether or not your rant about rich people is true, she fully deserved every year of her sentence. I don't excuse her ONE BIT for ripping off "the evil rich people." She also hurt a whole lot of regular people, either tricking them into thinking they were disease-free, or tricking them into thinking they had diseases they didn't.

        Yes, she did deserve it.

        In fact, I think that the people who were harmed by her machine's faulty premise played a huge part in her punishment. Venture capitalism has people losing money all the time.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      Meanwhile, Trevor Milton [wikipedia.org] tithed 1.8-million to Trump and was pardoned and doesn't need to pay restitution for the 178-million owed to Nikolai shareholders.

    • Along with Bernie Madoff and George Santos she fucked with the real money people.

      Here in America you can rip off all the little ladies you want but if you make a fool out of somebody with a billion dollars your ass is grass. She's honestly lucky she's not going to die in prison.

      In this very specific case, that's not exactly what's going on. Holmes has a small number of followers to whom she is sort of a cult leader. One of whom is her husband. I'm honestly pretty shocked that before she finally reported to prison that he didn't grab her and the kids and try to flee to another country and ask for asylum. Her husband's family is quoted as saying that they don't know who he is anymore. And I've also seen some venture capitalists who said they would have no problem throwing

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Holmes has a small number of followers to whom she is sort of a cult leader.

        It's the crazy eyes.

    • Jon Corzine and MF Global fits the pattern too.

      He stole from the little guys, got a stern talking to and a fine. You'll have to scroll way down to get the details. In the end the victims did get their money back so there is that.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      Back the train up. She walked around with a fake voice and thought she was Steve Jobs and gave off some real Fire Festival energy in everything she did. I think they can see she's a mentally deranged Silicon Valley cult member wannabe and they're embarrassed about it first and foremost before any kind of money thing.

  • How the F did they blow through $452 million in what .. 5 years? That doesn't even seem possible.

    • Literally(*) peanuts, if you look at how much Meta and OpenAI are blowing through in a year...

      (*) pedant martin here: Not literally of course, but a metaphor, transmogrified by modern usage....(sigh.)

      • (*) pedant martin here: Not literally of course, but a metaphor, transmogrified by modern usage....(sigh.)

        Golly mister Martin, "modern usage" is ephemeral, dontcha no?

        • (*) pedant martin here: Not literally of course, but a metaphor, transmogrified by modern usage....(sigh.)

          Golly mister Martin, "modern usage" is ephemeral, dontcha no?

          I mean literally!

    • Hiring 800 people (Theranos peak), spending ~110 k on them per year over 5 years, gives this amount. Of course Theranos did not have 800 people continuously, and not all were high pay people, but they also had expensive R&D to pay for.

    • Well it gets pricey paying other companies to do all your lab results.

  • Supreme Court not the final option (Score:4, Informative)

    by ApproachingLinux ( 756909 ) on Friday May 09, 2025 @10:08PM (#65365599)
    if she misses with the Supreme Court, she can still kiss up to President Trump (or his successors) for a pardon (sigh)

  • This wasn't just financial fraud (Score:3)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Friday May 09, 2025 @10:31PM (#65365627)

    She risked peoples lives with her scam. She should never get out as a message to others.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by linuxguy ( 98493 )

      Should and could are different things. She can purchase her freedom. "Donate" $1m to Trump and call him the best president ever. This is what the Nikola founder, who was also convicted of fraud, did. And it worked.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      She should never get out as a message to others.

      And that is everything wrong with the legal system in America. You treat it as a punitive punishment alone rather than rehabilitation. The problem with this is when all punishment becomes extreme then there's no point in wasting time on small stuff.

      Smoke a joint, go to prison, end up with a record that prevents me getting a job when I get out fucking my life up likely putting me in prison again. Why would I mess with that small shit when I can just kill a guy and get the same punishment.

      She risked peoples lives with her scam.

      As shitty as it is,

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        "Patients were misdiagnosed with everything from diabetes to cancer" - https://www.integrityline.com/... [integrityline.com]
        • She was acquitted of all charges related to defrauding patients. https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]

        • Yes that's a great line from a whistle-blower who made those claims, and the courts specifically found her not guilty of that claim.

          Which means we're back to emotion vs facts. We have a legal justice system that exists to make decisions beyond the soundbites put into the media. You may not like it, but that's precisely why its there, we don't punish people, even people as shitty as she is based only on feelings and claims that didn't ultimately get proven.

      • You assume that Americans can be rehabilitated. Case in point: You'd have thought Trump losing in 2020 would've humbled the guy and his party. Fk no.
  • If you ever worked in vitro diagnostics, you would know what was wrong with her idea. Any blood draw tech or nurse at any hospital would know - you draw a whole tube, not because you need the volume, but because you need a clean sample. There are also issues with whole blood, so you may need to get the plasma or serum separated.

    She was foolish and possibly charlatan, but so are thousands of other inventors. I really don't get this story at all. Judge should let her go and scold on the numbskulls investing
    • I worked for Siemens Health Care on their Centaur product at the time Holmes came out with her BS, and thought, "She's full of it." There's no way her little rag-tag group could come out with something to put the big boys on their heels. If what she proposed was feasible, we'd have investigated it by then. Siemens, in particular, was not the sort to sit on their butts and rake in cash without thinking of the next generation.

  • She's special, not like other criminals.

  • I hate it when legal stories don't post a link to the actual decision, since they are notoriously hard to find for new decisions.

    https://storage.courtlistener.... [courtlistener.com]

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