Court rejects Elizabeth Holmes' motion to stay out of prison while on appeal

WASHINGTON — Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has once again lost her bid to stay out of prison while she appeals her fraud conviction tied to a blood-testing hoax that bilked investors.

In a one-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Holmes' appeal did not show that she would have received a shorter sentence or have her conviction reversed due to errors made during her trial.

Holmes’ 11-year prison sentence is scheduled to start roughly 20 years after she dropped out of Stanford University when she was 19 years old to start Theranos in Palo Alto, California — the same city where William Hewlett and David Packard founded a company bearing their surnames in a small garage and planted the seeds of what grew into Silicon Valley.

Holmes has been free on bail since a jury convicted her on four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022. The verdict followed a four-month trial revolving around her downfall from a rising Silicon Valley star to an alleged scam artist chasing fame and fortune while fleecing investors and endangering the health of patients relying on Theranos’ flawed blood tests.