Elizabeth Holmes tried to ‘flee the country’, prosecutors say

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Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos, booked a one-way plane ticket to Mexico which was due to depart just weeks after she was convicted of fraud in January 2022, according to a recent court filing. In the document, filed Thursday, prosecutors describe the booking as an attempt to flee the country.

Government lawyers learned of the flight’s departure on January 26, 2022 on January 23 and alerted Holmes’ legal team by email. They replied that she had booked the flight before the verdict in the hope that she could attend a wedding in Mexico. Holmes canceled the ticket, but it’s unclear what the defendant would have done had the government not intervened, the plaintiffs wrote.

The filing was in response to a motion by Holmes, 38, to ease restrictions on his region of travel. To do that, Holmes must prove she is not a flight risk, a requirement that prosecutors say she failed to meet.

In November last year, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison following her January 3, 2022 conviction on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was given a surrender date of April 27, 2023, after the court found she was pregnant with her second child.

Holmes has posted $500,000 bond secured by his parents’ home, according to his petition, and lives on an estate in California with a reported monthly upkeep of more than $13,000, according to the prosecutors’ filing.

Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to more than 11 years in prison

She justified her request for expanded travel based on her partner’s work commitments and also recorded her salary as $0 despite claiming that her partner pays the monthly bills rather than her, according to the plaintiffs’ document.

His lawyers argued in their motion that Holmes had close ties to his partner and family, including his son and unborn child, which prompted him to comply with his release terms.

Holmes founded lab testing startup Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19, promising technology that could perform hundreds of medical tests with just a few drops of blood. The company has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from high-profile investors including Rupert Murdoch and Walmarts Walton Family. Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis was on the board.

But Holmes’ image as an up-and-coming young CEO crumbled when it was finally discovered that Theranos was relying on other companies’ technology to do the testing, and was leading what the case for Thursday calls it an elaborate fraud scheme that resulted in more than a hundred million dollars in loss, with no regard for the patients she put at risk and no remorse to date for the investor-victims.

There are not two justice systems, one for the rich and one for the poor, there is only one criminal justice system in this country, the plaintiffs added.

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