Michael Wyke/AP
Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (center) is escorted by prison officials to a federal women’s prison camp in Bryan, Texas, on May 30, 2023. Federal prosecutors are asking Holmes to pay victims of her failed blood-testing startup $250 a month after she was released from prison — but her attorneys have dismissed it, citing the former CEO’s “limited financial resources.” Theranos.
CNN –
Disgraced former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes could be released from prison nearly two years earlier than expected, according to the expected release date released by the Bureau of Prisons.
Holmes reported to a Texas detention center in late May after being sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison late last year. However, the Bureau of Prisons’ online database now reports that Holmes’ expected release date is December 29, 2032 – which would take about two years of her full sentence.
The discrepancy appears to be due to how the Bureau of Prisons calculates its expected release date.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons told CNN that the agency cannot comment on the conditions of individual inmates, but said inmates may earn a Good Conduct Time (or GCT) that counts toward their expected release date. Qualifying inmates are currently entitled to up to 54 days of GCT time for each year of court-imposed sentence.
In addition, inmates have other opportunities to earn time credits during their incarceration, the spokesman said, citing a number of other factors that might go into the agency’s calculation of the expected release date, including an inmate’s participation in various prison programs. These factors, which go into calculating an estimated release date, are not unique to Holmes’ case, but are standard for inmates.
Holmes is currently serving her sentence at Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security federal prison camp located about 100 miles from Houston. Her request to remain free on bail while she fights to have her conviction overturned was rejected by an appeals court in May.
Once a tech icon, Holmes served as a poster child for Silicon Valley’s boundless ambition and potential. She is now one of the few tech executives to serve a prison sentence, having been convicted of multiple investor fraud charges while running Theranos early last year.
Theranos was worth $9 billion at its peak — making Holmes a paper billionaire. The company faltered after a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigation found that Theranos had only run about a dozen of the hundreds of tests it had using its proprietary technology, and with questionable accuracy. It also turned out that Theranos relied on third-party-made equipment from traditional blood-testing companies, rather than its own technology.