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US News

Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced on Friday to 11 years and three months—or 135 months—in prison after she was found to have engaged in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors in her failed company, Theranos, which offered blood testing lab services.

The sentencing by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, came after Holmes was in January convicted of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud to defraud investors. The jury verdict was reached after a trial that spanned three months.

The case revolved around claims by Theranos to have technology that could detect multiple diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood, but the technology did not work. The company also suggested that patients could receive diagnoses via small machines instead of traditional labs, and these machines could potentially be used in various settings, including in homes, pharmacies, and even on the battlefield.

During the trial, prosecutors said that Holmes, formerly the company’s CEO, misrepresented the company’s technology and finances. Theranos had relied on conventional machines from other companies to run patients’ tests, prosecutors alleged.

Evidence submitted during the trial showed the blood tests yielded unreliable results, which could have led patients to inappropriate treatments. But Holmes’s legal team asserted the company never stopped trying to improve the technology until it collapsed in 2018.

Holmes, who testified in her own defense, said she believed the statements she made about Theranos’s technology were accurate at the time.

Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes's Five Best Cover Story Appearances, Ranked -  Vox