[HN Gopher] Elizabeth Holmes is sentenced to more than 11 years ...
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Elizabeth Holmes is sentenced to more than 11 years for fraud
Author : doener
Score : 169 points
Date : 2022-11-18 22:22 UTC (37 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| [deleted]
| peter422 wrote:
| "Judge Edward J. Davila ... sentenced Ms. Holmes to 135 months in
| prison, which is slightly more than 11 years. Ms. Holmes, 38, who
| plans to appeal the verdict, must report to prison on April 27,
| 2023.
|
| Federal sentencing guidelines for wire fraud of the size that Ms.
| Holmes was convicted of recommend 20 years in prison. Ms.
| Holmes's lawyers had asked for 18 months of house arrest, while
| prosecutors sought 15 years and $804 million in restitution for
| 29 investors."
| nimbius wrote:
| holy cats. the only thing that might send you away longer is
| tax fraud and thats only because the us tax code was never
| demilitarized after we crushed the mafia. 18 months was _never_
| going to happen.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Is it normal for there to be a sentencing and then be free for
| 5 months before going to prison? I always assumed after a
| sentencing you went straight to prison. What's the rationale
| for waiting? To listen to appeals?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Probably two ways. First, for people to get their affairs in
| order. For example you don't need a lease or can sell or rent
| out your house or something.
|
| Second, for the prison facility to make sure there's a free
| space for the incoming person.
|
| Edit: Someone pointed out she's pregnant, so there's that...
| jquery wrote:
| Yeah, can someone explain this? Meanwhile if you're poor and
| can't afford bail you might spend 3 years in jail awaiting
| trial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
| Phlarp wrote:
| For rich and connected people convicted of white collar
| crimes it's very common. It's also common for upper class
| criminals to arrange the terms of their own work release--
| where they are employed by a company they own and are free
| 12+ hours a day, only returning to custody to sleep. (Epstein
| did this with his first conviction)
|
| For the rest of the population without money, power or
| connections accused of drug crimes or petty theft it's
| typical that you will be arrested and placed in jail
| immediately and will be in custody until you are convicted /
| sentenced at which point you will go directly to prison.
| tarunupaday wrote:
| in US - and specially for federal crimes - its very routine
| for the courts to give some time for the person to report to
| prison.
|
| This allows the person sentenced to get their affairs in
| order.
|
| I know somebody who is sentenced for 10 years. The court gave
| him 2 months which actually is not enough for all the items
| he need to wrap up. To give an idea, this person needs to:
|
| - sell his house (who will pay the mortgage now that he is in
| prison) - sell his car - donate / get rid of his clothes and
| most of his belongings (or leave them in care of family /
| storage) - cancel all the subscriptions and utilities - take
| care of any medical needs - inform all the people who might
| reach out to him so they can communicate with him - more...
|
| On the correction system side, they also need time to figure
| out where to send this person and create the space there: -
| If the person sentenced has any medical needs they will ask
| for a "medical" facility (connected to a hospital) and
| usually nicer. - the person sentenced might request a
| correction facility that is closer to his loved ones (the guy
| I know requested and going to a facility in Texas even though
| he lives in Florida as his closest relative is his sister who
| lives near that facility) - other factors include doing tests
| / analysis to figure out should the person go to level 1
| security (minimum) or something higher; is the person
| considered a risk to other inmates? are other inmates
| considered a risk to this person (common for cops, sexual
| offenders etc)
|
| Of course, if the person is considered a flight risk or
| violence risk - they will just send him/her to the nearest
| county jail and then figure out the rest.
|
| Overall, a lot of logistics and consideration is given to an
| inmate - specially in a federal system.
| dannykwells wrote:
| Elizabeth is expecting and will give birth in early 2023.
| This is a mercy for the judge to allow her to not give birth
| in prison.
| notch656a wrote:
| Or the judge trolling so that she'll pop out the kid and
| have some days to bond, and as soon as life feels somewhat
| normal and together the kid will be ripped away and she'll
| be tossed in a place full of gnashing of teeth and
| suffering.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| >April 27, 2023
|
| ~Five months from now seems long. Is that a common delta
| between sentencing and prison?
| loeg wrote:
| See sibling reply:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33663715
| FiberBundle wrote:
| Imagine how completely devoid of empathy you have to be to get
| pregnant twice, knowing that your children have an extremely high
| risk of growing up without their mother, just because you think
| that this will improve your chances of getting a lighter
| sentence. Absolutely despicable. She deserves every day she
| spends in prison.
| chairhairair wrote:
| I agree that there should be repercussions for the damage she
| caused, but the whiplash of this comment is pretty funny.
|
| I'm not sure how advocating for another person to enter the US
| prison system demonstrates any sort of empathy.
| AustinDev wrote:
| This to me is the saddest part of the saga. It's obviously
| awful what she did to the patients but, seeing a mother do this
| to her own child somehow just hits different.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I thought her thinking was "I will be unable to have a child
| when I get out of prison". Which makes some sense. Preventing
| my someone from procreating seems like a serious punishment not
| warranted in this case.
| lesuorac wrote:
| They don't yet cyrofreeze convicts, you can get pregnant
| while in prison although I suspect you must be on work-detail
| or some other revenue generating activity for the prison to
| approve your visitations.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't fulminate on HN.
|
| Perhaps you don't owe convicted fraudster mothers better, but
| you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| So that's what... 9.5 years minimum?
|
| I can't picture someone with such an inflated sense of self-worth
| finding that to be acceptable. How's she not making this worse
| for herself by trying to flee or something?
| vkou wrote:
| I doubt her passport still works, and I likewise doubt that she
| still has (or ever had) the right friends to disappear without
| one.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Hmmmm yeah I guess she was never actually part of the elite
| billionaire club of people with seemingly limitless power.
| googlryas wrote:
| 24 months and then "house arrest"
| deathgripsss wrote:
| If it's a federal sentence I don't think they will be that
| lenient
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's federal. So an absolute minimum of 85% of the sentence.
| dang wrote:
| All: we had a flurry of threads about this all at once, which
| isn't surprising, but the comments they got were almost all bad
| (for HN)--cheap and reflexive rather than thoughtful and
| reflective. We want the latter, not the former*, so please take a
| moment to reflect before commenting, and if you'd make sure
| you're up on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| we'd appreciate that too.
|
| * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
| AustinDev wrote:
| Do any of the patients she defrauded have civil suits against her
| / Thernos?
| Qtips87 wrote:
| This creepy little thing should be locked up for life.
| metadat wrote:
| https://archive.today/00Uhs
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Interesting to compare this with the ongoing FTX disaster.
|
| I think these two cases are sort of parallels: people assumed
| that someone was a genius to such an extent that they disregarded
| any signs of fraud and sought little proof of the assertions
| being made.
| munk-a wrote:
| If we're talking about financial damage done this sentencing
| still feels exceedingly light. We have a real double standard -
| there are people in jail for longer for possession.
|
| Edit to clarify: My statement is more intended to emphasize how
| overly punishing possession charges rather than to advocate for
| draconian charges for all offenses.
| z9znz wrote:
| The possession charges are part of a concerted effort beginning
| in the 1980s "war on drugs" to provide reliable income for the
| budding private prison industry. It was a hugely successful
| campaign that has done irreperable damage to the US at the
| individual level as well as the broad public/financial level.
|
| Poor people cannot afford to defend themselves, so they make
| easy targets for incarceration.
|
| Wealthy or connected people take much more time and effort to
| imprison, so the risk vs reward for prosecutors is just not
| worth it in most cases. You have to _really_ piss off or
| embarrass a lot of powerful people to get taken down like this
| current case.
| gruez wrote:
| >The possession charges are part of a concerted effort
| beginning in the 1980s "war on drugs" to provide reliable
| income for the budding private prison industry.
|
| Source? I checked wikipedia and it suggests that it was the
| other way around. The article on war on drugs also doesn't
| show much developments around the 80s. Most of the changes
| were in the 70s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#Development_2
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#20th_century
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Seems excessive to me. I don't really care about people conning
| rich people into parting with their money, especially when they
| don't bother to do basic due diligence before hand.
| Natsu wrote:
| > If we're talking about financial damage done this sentencing
| still feels exceedingly light.
|
| They gave her a sentence that's a little below the federal
| sentencing guidelines but not by a huge amount.
| tptacek wrote:
| A federal 10 year sentence is a very severe punishment. There's
| virtually no parole federally; once you're in, you're in.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 11 years is a heavy sentence. The sentences for possession are
| what are wrong.
| munk-a wrote:
| Between you and the very similar sibling comment from
| micromacrofoot I've edited my original statement. I
| completely agree with what you both are saying and wanted to
| clarify that I was highlighting the contrast between these
| sentences not advocating for draconian prison sentences for
| everyone.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| This is the right sentiment, but maybe a little backwards,
| people shouldn't be in jail for possession.
| partiallypro wrote:
| People do not serve that long of sentences for mere possession.
| That's an exaggeration. I want legalization, but for mere
| possession you do not get that type of sentence. If someone is
| serving that for possession, it's one of many charges or
| possession of a very large amount (into the pounds.)
| heliodor wrote:
| And there are people in prison doing less time for murder.
|
| We fail to reflect that 11 years in prison is a really long and
| miserable time.
| tptacek wrote:
| Virtually all of them are convicted in state courts and under
| state sentencing systems. Most states have mandatory minimums
| for 1st degree murder, and those minimums are much higher
| than Holmes' sentence; second-degree murder usually admits a
| huge range of sentences, which captures the variety of
| circumstances that might attend an unplanned killing.
| dheera wrote:
| zzleeper wrote:
| You know, they could easily go after both groups no?
|
| We often feel we are in a XOR situation, but it's often
| easier for the govt to try to consistently enforce rules
| independently of the faces attached to the accused.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think Holmes did actual damage that equals or surpasses
| some of these violent acts you enumerate. Medical tests that
| don't work is a serious crime. There are serious consequences
| to, say, an HIV test that doesn't work right. And she sold
| that with full knowledge that it didn't work.
|
| Of course, she's being prosecuted for financial crimes and
| not this... I guess they got Al Capone on taxes.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I don't think this is light at all. 10 years in prison is no
| joke. I actually thought she would only get 3-4 years.
| Ndmmddnd wrote:
| This is absolutely false
| codex_irl wrote:
| Out of curiosity, does anyone know what happened to all of the
| Theranos hardware / technology after the company was shut down?
| e.g. the edison testing machines
| arthurcolle wrote:
| What is the value of IP that doesn't work? Edison machine IP
| seems about as useful as those time travel or perpetual motion
| machine patents that come up.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I would very much like a Theranos Edison for my office, next
| to a Juicero.
| jen20 wrote:
| I'd imagine those machines in particular would be useful as
| museum pieces.
| codex_irl wrote:
| That is what I am thinking.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Collectibles...definitely a market there
| duxup wrote:
| They had nothing of value.
|
| They were often running tests on competitors machines.
|
| Their machine could not do what it promised with the amount of
| blood it claimed to use and was no better than proven machines,
| and arguably worse as they had lot of maintenance issues even
| operating at their HQ.
|
| They had nothing of value.
| doener wrote:
| This user was faster:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33663191
| dang wrote:
| The NYT article has the most information of the ones I've seen.
| Edit:
| https://twitter.com/scottbudman/status/1593729235818278912 also
| (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33663152).
|
| When all else is equal, we favor the earliest submitter of a
| story, but if one submission is more substantive than another
| (as yours was in this case), then it should win. A substantive
| article with more information has a better chance of forming a
| good thread.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| I hope everyone learns their lesson from this - only lie to poor
| people.
|
| Someday we will have to reckon with the fact that SV founder
| culture encourages this kind of behaviour.
| Qtips87 wrote:
| In his sentencing statement, Judge Edward Davila said the case
| was "troubling on so many levels."
|
| "What went wrong? This is sad because Ms. Holmes is brilliant."
|
| Brilliant of what? Of dressing in black turtleneck and imitating
| Steve Jobs? Able to lower her voice one octave down?
| xiphias2 wrote:
| How much can she decrease it with good behaviour? (which she will
| probably have, as I'm not expecting her to do anything bad
| there).
|
| Maybe she gets out after 5 years, which is hopefully enough for
| her to not start something similar again.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I feel really bad for her children, I can't believe she had the
| gall to have them given this inevitability.
|
| I'm also of the mind that people shouldn't go to prison for non-
| violent crime (some extreme form of probation seems more
| effective to me), but that's an entirely different story.
| trentnix wrote:
| She had children specifically hoping it would help her avoid
| harsh punishment. She's a manipulative sociopath...having
| children was more of the same.
| prepend wrote:
| I find it odd that she found love and married. It seems like a
| pretty big negative that someone would have to get over to meet
| and love someone who defrauded billions of dollars.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Good.
|
| She was a fraud and misled everyone in a big way: investors,
| patients, etc...
|
| White collar crime needs to be punished. Or "held accountable
| for"
| mothsonasloth wrote:
| This is not the first and won't be the last case of its kind.
|
| The interesting thing politically is if this will be enforced or
| not, as I am sure there are a lot of Silicon valley founders
| worrying now. At best they will get some deserved extra scrutiny,
| at worse will be getting investigated.
|
| I've seen talk about Holmes' political connections, but she
| surely is too toxic for them to get her a "free pass". She might
| get relief from somewhere else though?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Why would anyone be "worried about this" unless they, too, were
| running a big scam? Theranos did not fail it was just crime
| from start to finish.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| You know what REALLY bothers me about this?
|
| She (possibly) gets pregnant during the first trial to garner
| sympathy. Even if you have a charitable interpretation of this
| only the worst of the worst narcissistic sociopaths decide to
| "start a family" when they're potentially facing 15 years in
| Federal Prison. She's currently pregnant with her second child.
|
| Now those kids get to grown up without a mother and live the rest
| of their lives with the knowledge or at least suspicion they're
| in this world because their con-artist mother was trying to
| manipulate the justice system.
|
| Even IF you take the approach that she thought big and failed,
| doing no real wrong the situation with her pregnancies (in my
| mind) isn't up for debate. On this issue alone I find her
| completely reprehensible.
| jliptzin wrote:
| It is terrible if that was the reason, but as for the kids,
| plenty of kids grow up with one parent or raised by
| grandparents, aunts/uncles, or adoptive parents.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Or she's 38 and her fertility window is closing. I'll hold many
| things against her, she deserves prison time, but I won't hold
| having a child against her or judge her for it. She may be
| doing it for the reasons you mentioned, but so many women go to
| prison with far fewer resources to care for their children
| while they're in. I doubt she thought any seasoned judge would
| take it into consideration.
| loeg wrote:
| And she will be out before she's 50 and be able to have some
| relationship with her kids. I agree with you (and not the
| grandparent comment) -- I can't hold this against her.
| macrolime wrote:
| She's too old to have kids once she's out though. It's now or
| never for her.
| tptacek wrote:
| In a previous thread, I had this at "more than 10 years, less
| than 60" (yeah, that's an easy bet to make!). The core driver of
| the sentence is probably the guidelines 2B1.1 table, which scales
| sentencing levels by economic losses. She was convicted for
| something like $140MM in fraudulent losses, which by themselves
| ask for a 24-level escalation (the table maxes out in the
| mid-40s).
|
| By the numbers, the court was probably quite lenient here. Not to
| say that's an unjust outcome; the "lenient" option for sentencing
| on serious federal felonies is still quite harsh.
|
| _Edit_
|
| I tracked down the prosecutor's sentencing memorandum; they asked
| for 15 years. So I guess maybe not that lenient.
| ryoshu wrote:
| FTX is over $1 billion and the table maxes out at $550 million,
| so that should be fun. Lawmakers should revisit that.
| tptacek wrote:
| That's true, and it does mean that once you hit $550MM, you
| might as well keep going, but on the flip side, the full
| sentence accelerator for 2b1.1 at $550MM gets you above 20
| years by itself.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I think her being pregnant and having a child definitely made
| the sentence a little lighter than if she were otherwise. I do
| wonder if she'll even serve the full sentence.
| tptacek wrote:
| She will serve the full sentence. There is no federal parole.
| metadat wrote:
| No reductions for good behavior etc? I didn't know this..
| or I'd forgotten. Thank you.
| e40 wrote:
| That recent picture of her looks like she is pregnant. Is that
| the case? What a way to start an 11 year sentence.
| ProAm wrote:
| tbf I think after 11 years she would be outside of the safe age
| range to have a baby in America, so now or never type of
| scenario.
| 300bps wrote:
| She's about 6 months pregnant now and the sentence won't begin
| until April 27, 2023.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| You are correct.
| inerte wrote:
| I heard on NPR that yes, she is.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| She had a child while the case was pending, and is pregnant
| again.
|
| Hell of a thing to do to a kid.
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