Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes surrendered Tuesday to federal prison authorities nearly two years after her trial started.
Holmes was ordered to surrender despite her appeal to overturn her 11-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy tied to the Theranos downfall.
A judge recommended sending Holmes, 39, to the minimum-security women's prison camp in Bryan, Texas, which is located about 100 miles east of Austin. The prison is called FPC Bryan.
“Maybe it's not as tough as a prison with stricter regulations and it may be easier to visit and perhaps there’s less chance of violence, but a lot of people who are scheduled to report to white collar prison end up not reporting for a variety of reasons, they either go on the run or end up taking their own lives,” said Aron Solomon, legal analyst with Esquire Digital.
Nonetheless, it’s a prison with 6 a.m. wake up calls, chores, jobs that pay 12 to 40 cents an hour, three changes of clothing, and limited visitation privileges.
Once she enters prison, Holmes will be leaving behind two young children — a son born in July 2021 a few weeks before the start of her trial and a 3-month old daughter who was conceived after a jury convicted her on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022.
"Part of being deprived of your liberty is that she's not going to be able to see her family anytime that she wants, she's going to be able to do things only on the schedule of the institution she ends up reporting to,” said Solomon.
As her downfall comes to an end, many female CEOs in the Silicon Valley say they’re left with a shadow over their shoulders.
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“You wish that it was about the fundamentals, it’s not, unfortunately you gotta know going in this is what the game is going to be, you gotta play 10 times harder, Elizabeth Holmes made it 20 times harder so we’re just going to play that much harder,” said Michelle Dennedy, PrivacyCode CEO.
Holmes and her former partner Sunny Balwani have also been ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to Theranos investors like Rupert Murdoch, the Devos family and Walgreens.
Holmes has been free on bail since then, most recently living in the San Diego area with the children's father, William “Billy” Evans. The couple met in 2017 around the same time Holmes was under investigation for the collapse of Theranos, a startup she founded after dropping out of Stanford University when she was just 19.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
