In a decisive ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the conviction of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, rejecting her appeal against multiple fraud charges linked to her now-defunct blood-testing startup. Holmes, who is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence, had sought to overturn her conviction on the grounds of alleged legal errors during her trial.
The appellate court also upheld the conviction of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Theranos’s former president and Holmes’s ex-romantic partner. Both were convicted of defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, a scheme that unraveled when the company’s proprietary blood-testing technology was exposed as nonfunctional and misleading.
Appeal Rejected: Court Dismisses Claims of Legal Errors
A three-judge panel in San Francisco found no merit in Holmes’s claims that her 2022 trial was compromised by procedural missteps or improper evidentiary rulings. Holmes, 41, was originally sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison but has since received a sentence reduction for good behavior, bringing her expected release to 2032. Balwani received a 12-year, 11-month sentence.
Holmes was further ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to defrauded investors, a financial penalty that remains on hold due to her limited financial resources.
Holmes’s Defense: Allegations of Unfair Trial Procedures
Holmes’s legal team, which filed the appeal in April 2023, argued that her trial had featured improper procedures and misleading evidence, undermining her right to a fair trial. However, the prosecution countered that Theranos’s core technology was widely discredited, emphasizing that “it was not really contested that the device did not work.”
Holmes’s defense had long maintained that she never intended to defraud investors, asserting that she genuinely believed in Theranos’s technology. Nonetheless, the court found substantial evidence of intentional misrepresentation, including false claims about the Edison blood-testing machine’s capabilities and misleading assurances to investors and business partners.
Media Appearance Amid Legal Battle
Before the appellate court’s ruling, Holmes re-emerged in the public spotlight, granting her first post-conviction interview to People magazine. In the cover story, she described federal prison conditions as “hell and torture” and reflected on how incarceration had changed her. “I am not the same person I was back then,” she stated, lamenting the separation from her husband and two young children.
Final Verdict: Holmes Remains Incarcerated
With the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of her appeal, Holmes has exhausted a key legal avenue for overturning her conviction. Barring further judicial relief, she will continue serving her sentence and remain liable for the restitution order, should her financial circumstances change.
The Theranos scandal remains one of the most high-profile corporate fraud cases in U.S. history, serving as a cautionary tale on the dangers of unchecked startup hype and investor deception.
