Meanwhile, scam startups are continuing to flourish all over the place, as we can see in the dodgy tech section (which probably covers only 1% of them all) and all attention is on Elizabeth Holmes.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11463257/Judge-recommends-pregnant-Elizabeth-Holmes-sent-minimum-security-prison-camp-TEXAS.html
Meanwhile, scam startups are continuing to flourish all over the place, as we can see in the dodgy tech section (which probably covers only 1% of them all) and all attention is on Elizabeth Holmes.
I like when Dave, BigClive, DiodesGoneWild, AvE, and others expose dodgy tech, bad tools, bad engineering, in a fun to watch manner on Youtube.
Not only because it is fun to watch, but because they all ridicule the dodgy tech attempts. That is good: ridicule is better than anger; more useful, too, I guess.
As to other media, there is very little to no news anymore, it's all social media and emotive opinionated "reporting". What they focus on is arbitrary and insane in any case. So if you're referring to those, I don't care; they're mostly feces anyway.
During sentencing last week, Davila called the case 'troubling on so many levels.' 'Was there a loss of a moral compass here? The tragedy of this case is Ms. Holmes is brilliant .
...
The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila was shorter than the 15-year penalty requested by federal prosecutors *but far tougher than the leniency her legal team sought for the mother of a year-old son with another child on the way
Brilliant at work or brilliant at dishonesty?
Judge recommends cushy prison ‘camp’ with ‘no walls, bars, or fences’ for Elizabeth Holmes
By Olivia Land November 23, 2022 3:30pm
At first glance the recommendation might seem strange, considering Holmes lived and ran her company out of northern California. However, Bloomberg spoke with a criminal defense lawyer who said Holmes’ attorneys likely requested the facility.
During sentencing last week, Davila called the case 'troubling on so many levels.' 'Was there a loss of a moral compass here? The tragedy of this case is Ms. Holmes is brilliant. 'Failure is normal. But failure by fraud is not OK. What is the pathology of fraud? Is it the inability to accept responsibility? Perhaps that the cautionary tale to come from this case.' Addressing the court Holmes broke down in tears, saying: 'I stand before you taking responsibility for Theranos. I loved Theranos. It was my life's work.
The facility’s handbook boasts of the board games, movie nights and correspondence courses available to inmates. All inmates are also required to work, and receive an hourly wage between 12 cents and $1.15
“The Court finds that family visitation enhances rehabilitation,” Davila wrote.
Prosecutors are also seeking $804 million in restitution to investors – including bigwigs like software mogul Larry Ellison and the Walton family of Walmart – who funded Theranos.
A hearing to determine how much Holmes will have to pay will take place in December. She is also expected to appeal her sentence, which she must do within two weeks of her initial sentencing date.
1: Reappeal sentence.
2: Delay the court even more by asking the prosecutors for things that they have to wait for like documents.
3 Ask for sentence to be quashed.
4: Have another baby
Goto 1:
Elizabeth Holmes could stay out of prison for a year or more: legal experts
Judge recommends Theranos founder go to prison camp in Texas
By ETHAN BARON | ebaron@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: November 25, 2022 at 7:30 a.m. | UPDATED: November 25, 2022 at 5:09 p.m
When Judge Edward Davila sentenced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to more than 11 years in prison last week, he ordered that she surrender for imprisonment April 27. But legal experts say Holmes could remain free well past that date.
After Davila sentenced Holmes, 38, on four counts of felony fraud, one of her lawyers in the courtroom told him her legal team planned to file a “motion for bail pending appeal” that would allow her to stay out of custody while she appeals the jury’s verdict.
Holmes has remained free for the duration of her four-year criminal case; therefore, it’s unlikely Davila or the 9th Circuit federal appeals court that will hear her appeal would decide she’s a flight risk or threat to the public, and deny her motion for bail pending appeal on either basis, legal experts said
Holmes could also ask Davila to delay her surrender date, based for example on possible pregnancy complications or needs of her coming newborn, Cohen said.
1: Reappeal sentence.
2: Delay the court even more by asking the prosecutors for things that they have to wait for like documents.
3 Ask for sentence to be quashed.
4: Have another baby
Goto 1:
Here's how Elizabeth Holmes may try to avoid prison as long as possible
Alexis Keenan·Reporter Mon, November 21, 2022, 2:24 PM·5 min read
Elizabeth Holmes has at least one more opportunity to stay out of prison after a judge on Friday sentenced the once-aspiring biotech entrepreneur to 11 years and three months behind bars for defrauding a group of investors in her collapsed blood-testing startup, Theranos.
Holmes’ freedom is dependent upon an expected appeal of her case, which her lawyers must file within two weeks. Once an appeal is filed, Holmes can request to remain out of custody while her appeal is considered by the 9th Circuit Court of appeals.
George Demos, a former prosecutor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, says there’s “no doubt” the fallen Silicon Valley superstar will file an appeal. Only after that request — along with a request to remain free during its penance — will it be clear whether she will begin serving out the sentence Davila handed down.
So whether or not she reports to prison on April 27 remains to be seen,” Demos said. Still, avoiding incarceration altogether is an uphill battle.
First, she would need to persuade Judge Edward Davila – who decided her sentence and presided over her trial — as well as the trial of her codefendant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — that she deserves to stay out of custody while her appeal plays out in the higher court. If judge Davila rejects such a request, Holmes can appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is empowered to decide if she must report to prison or remain free as it considers the merits of appeal.
Second, she would need to prevail in her appeal. Even the appellate court cannot overturn Davila’s sentence, unless it finds that he miscalculated Holmes’ punishment under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. On the first point, Kyle Clark, a criminal defense lawyer with Baker Botts said it’s difficult to predict how Davila would respond to a request by Holmes for continued freedom. “If there's an appeal, sometimes they'll keep the people out [of prison] pending appeal, and sometimes they put them in jail, even though there's an appeal pending,” Clark said.
To make that decision Judge Davila would be tasked with considering many of the same factors that determined whether to permit Holmes to remain on bail following her indictment and into her sentence, such as whether or not her crime involved violence, her lack of criminal history, and whether she’s a flight risk. “The judge may be amenable to sentencing her, but holding her at bay while her appeal grinds away,” Clark said. “Though the government's position on that is important, too.”
Clark said he expects that prosecutors would stress that the long process of an appeal could delay Holmes for years from serving out her sentence. “That’s one of the things the government is going to say — that she should go to jail while the appeal is pending,” Clark said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Grounds for appeal
What grounds Holmes may raise to justify an appeal remain uncertain.
Appeals can be based on rulings on testimony and evidence, whether the judge’s rulings during the course of the actual trial are consistent, and whether Holmes was granted or denied the opportunity to put in any exculpatory evidence. However, Clark and other attorneys who talked with Yahoo Finance say Holmes’ chances for the appellate court to overturn the jury’s verdicts or Davila’s sentence are slim given Davila’s close management of the case, which helped to preserve a fair trial.
“The judge tried this case very carefully,” Jacob Frenkel, a white-collar criminal defense attorney, told Yahoo Finance in January immediately after the jury returned its verdicts following seven days of deliberations. “It's unlikely that an appeal would result in changing the sentence.”
Frenkel also pointed out that Holmes, in taking the stand during her trial, may have contributed to sealing her fate on appeal. “The fact is, Elizabeth Holmes testified. That was a gambit,” he said. “And ultimately, the jury made its decision in large part based on whether it did or did not believe Elizabeth Holmes. So I think the appeal is going to be tough sledding for the defense.”
After reading Holmes’ sentence to a packed courtroom on Friday, Davila said he would also afford Holmes another five months out of custody before April 27 when she’s required to surrender to incarceration. Holmes, 38, is now pregnant with her second child. “It’s significant,” Demos said, highlighting that Judge Davila actually made note of the five-month timeframe. “* I believe that’s designed to afford her the opportunity to give birth outside of prison, which is a compassionate and humane thing to do. And hopefully that leads to reforms throughout our prison process.”
How much time will Holmes serve?
If Holmes does file an appeal and fails to persuade Davila or the appellate court to undo what’s done, Demos says she’ll likely have little choice but to serve most of the sentence that Davila handed down. Provisions within the federal sentencing guidelines do include the possibility for early release based on good behavior.
“Whether or not she serves 11 years remains to be seen, but I would suspect she’d serve a substantial portion of that,” he said.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance.
Brilliant at work or brilliant at dishonesty?Brilliant as in "the Brillant Paula bean", if you ask me. (No typo.)
What do you call people who are so good at bullshitting other people, that even when those people find out they've been told only lies, still believe the bullshitter is a brilliant person? I've met many such. Finance and sales are full of them. Many, if not most, "celebrated" software developers are such.
"Brilliant" is as good a word as any, I guess. Just like anything that has "nano" or "quantum" or "enterprise" in its name.
Uh... that's a pretty common behavior. People that have been bullshitted and the truth finally comes out, many will tend to prefer considering that the person was extremely talented rather than consider that they have been stoopid all along. (Or admit that was just greed, or whatever reason that made them shut their eyes even when things were already pretty obvious.)
But, did they actually have something that partly worked, or did EVERYBODY there know it was all a huge scam?
Thing is, Holmes knew they didn't have a device, and the way the scientists demanded lots and lots more time to develop such a device, she was well aware that she was on top of a great big scam, and just didn't want to lose the financial benefits and rewards and publicity she was getting.
Thing is, Holmes knew they didn't have a device, and the way the scientists demanded lots and lots more time to develop such a device, she was well aware that she was on top of a great big scam, and just didn't want to lose the financial benefits and rewards and publicity she was getting.
I think it's very telling that she tried to get into a grad research program while still an undergrad. She wasn't interested in learning the science in the hopes of one day making a contribution...She wanted to jump right to the end. If you talk to scientists you find out how much there is to know about an area and how much they realize they still don't know. Holmes didn't care...she thought it was unnecessary...just declare a goal and DO IT. Psycho + Dunning-Kruger effect = Elizabeth Holmes
The root problem is always the followers. It has been, it is and it will be. For one psycho that ends up in prison, there are millions of potential followers waiting for the next one.
The root problem is always the followers. It has been, it is and it will be. For one psycho that ends up in prison, there are millions of potential followers waiting for the next one.We can't change humans from followers to leaders. If you try, you end up becoming a Mengele or similar monster. So, we have to harness the psychos, or accept the chaos they sow.
But I'll keep saying that the problem with Theranos was not her, it was all the people who followed her. And that's a general problem, which is why I'm pointing it out. By herself, she wouldn't have been able to do squat except talk. The root problem is always the followers. It has been, it is and it will be. For one psycho that ends up in prison, there are millions of potential followers waiting for the next one.
Psychopathy is highly sought after as a business leadership trait in CEO's. Prison doesn't affect it at all, the disorder is in mask ROM.
Psychopathy is highly sought after as a business leadership trait in CEO's. Prison doesn't affect it at all, the disorder is in mask ROM.
For that reason I kind of think they should be executed or tattooed with a warning to protect the rest of society. Psychopaths are incurable and cause an outsized amount of damage to those around them.
Psychopathy is highly sought after as a business leadership trait in CEO's. Prison doesn't affect it at all, the disorder is in mask ROM.
For that reason I kind of think they should be executed or tattooed with a warning to protect the rest of society. Psychopaths are incurable and cause an outsized amount of damage to those around them.
The root problem is always the followers. It has been, it is and it will be. For one psycho that ends up in prison, there are millions of potential followers waiting for the next one.We can't change humans from followers to leaders. If you try, you end up becoming a Mengele or similar monster. So, we have to harness the psychos, or accept the chaos they sow.
I would have expected a little more nuanced from you.
So people are either sheeps or leaders? Uh, no.
They are missing the bulk of human emotions, find them baffling to see in other humans. They learn to fake emotions, mimic them. It does make them "free" to commit all kinds of heinous acts. I think they are more commonplace than the statistics.
“SHE NEVER LOOKS BACK”: INSIDE ELIZABETH HOLMES’S CHILLING FINAL MONTHS AT THERANOS
BY NICK BILTON FEBRUARY 20, 2019
Holmes’s travel, security details, and publicists were all paid for by Theranos. Meals, clothing, and other social activities were almost always expensed. As one of the former employees said to me, “Someone had to be paying for all those Birkin bags.” This employee said that Holmes’s expenses were somewhat of a joke at the company. “The company paid for everything,” they said. “She would submit her miles if she drove the six miles to her house in Los Altos.”
The employee said that the only time Holmes evidenced defeat during Theranos’s collapse was when the company cut her off financially, after the criminal charges were filed. “She lost her cool. She had a fit,” they said. “She had to give up the house in Los Altos.”
Sunny Balwani: Former Theranos executive gets nearly 13 years in prison
Published 1 day ago By Madeline Halpert BBC News, Washington
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, the business partner of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison.
Balwani was convicted in July of 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his role in the failed blood-testing start-up. Theranos executives falsely claimed the product could diagnose illnesses with a few drops of blood from a finger prick. Holmes was sentenced to over 11 years (135 months) in prison last month. Balwani did not speak as he was sentenced to 155 months in prison at the end of a nearly four-hour sentencing hearing on Wednesday. His lawyers say that like Holmes, he plans to file an appeal.
Unlike Holmes, he was found guilty of defrauding patients who used the blood tests. Holmes was convicted of four counts of fraud. Once hailed as the "next Steve Jobs", she launched Theranos after dropping out of Stanford University at age 19. The company's value rose sharply after it claimed it could bring about a revolution in disease diagnosis.
Balwani, the company's former president and chief operating officer, served as her second-in-command and had direct oversight over the company's labs. Though the two were originally charged together, their trials were separated after Holmes accused Balwani of emotional and physical abuse during their romantic relationship, which occurred during their time at Theranos. She argued that his alleged manipulation of her was controlling and affected her business decisions. Balwani, who is 19 years her senior, has denied those allegations.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes gets 11 years in prison for fraud Who is Elizabeth Holmes and why was she on trial?
"Mr Balwani is not the same as Elizabeth Holmes," his lawyers wrote in a memo to the judge before the sentencing, adding that Holmes "was dramatically more culpable" for the scam.
"He actually invested millions of dollars of his own money; he never sought fame or recognition; and he has a long history of quietly giving to those less fortunate." The sentence was read in the same court in San Jose, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, where Holmes learned her fate less than three weeks earlier. Balwani's trial was sparsely attended compared to Holmes'. For her 18 November sentencing, crowds formed a queue five hours before the court opened, but there was no line to see him.
During her trial, Holmes testified that she had been raped while she was a student at Stanford and that she had sought solace from Balwani in the aftermath of the incident.
...
However, she later testified that Balwani had not forced her to make the false statements to investors, business partners, journalists and company directors that had been described in the case.[37] In her court testimony, Holmes stated that Balwani wanted to "kill the person" she was and make her into a "new Elizabeth" In court filings, Balwani and his ex-wife Fujimoto have "categorically" denied abuse allegations, calling them "false and inflammatory"
...
Balwani divorced his wife in 2002[113] and became romantically involved with Holmes in 2003, about the same time Holmes dropped out of university.[111] The couple moved into an apartment together in 2005
Theranos President and COO Sunny Balwani resigns
May 12, 2016 5:24 pm by AB Wire
The President and COO of Theranos Inc., Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani, who played a key role in the blood testing laboratory’s product development, growth, and the implementation of its mission, is retiring from his position.
...
50-year-old Balwani, a top associate of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, leaves in the wake of last month’s news
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Theranos spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said Balwani isn’t being blamed for the company’s regulatory problems. Rather, she said, his departure is merely part of a broader reorganization that will see the company appoint a new chief medical officer, to whom its labs will report, a new head of research and a new operating chief. The company is actively recruiting for those positions.
...
Fortune noted that Balwani leaving is “as if Holmes were cutting off her own right arm.”