Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of conspiracy and fraud last January for claims made to investors and patients of her Silicon Valley blood-testing company, Theranos.
Just after she was convicted of conspiracy and fraud last January, Elizabeth Holmes allegedly bought a one-way ticket to Mexico in an effort to flee the country, prosecutors claim.
Holmes, 38, was found guilty in January 2022 of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was tried on 11 counts of fraud for falsifying the results of blood tests conducted through her startup, Theranos. In November, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Though she has appealed her conviction before her sentencing starts on April 27, prosecutors state in court documents that she should go to prison now because she is a flight risk and made "an attempt to flee the country" last year, per multiple outlets.
The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that Defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip, prosecutors allege in the filing. Only after the government raised this unauthorized flight with defense counsel was the trip canceled.
They add that the incentive to flee has never been higher" and she "has the means to act on that incentive.
Holmes' lawyers alleged in an email that she booked the flight before her conviction and planned to attend a friend's wedding in Mexico if she wasn't found guilty.
Holmes first rose to prominence in 2014 as the founder and CEO of healthcare start-up Theranos, which duped investors out of millions by falsely purporting that its technology could run hundreds of medical tests using just a few drops of blood.
In 2015, Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou reported that the machine Holmes was selling dubbed The Edison did not actually work and that the company was using outside technology and other subterfuge to fake positive test results. Federal authorities then investigated Holmes, indicting her in 2018.