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Source: AFP
US federal prosecutors are in search of a 15-year jail term for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and wish her to pay greater than $800 million to buyers defrauded by her blood-testing startup, in accordance with a court docket submitting.
“The government recommends the Court sentence the defendant to 180 months in custody and order her to pay $803,840,309 in restitution,” stated a court docket submitting submitted Friday by US legal professional Stephanie Hinds.
The toughly worded submitting stated Holmes had been “blinded by… ambition,” and that “her reality-distortion field put, and will continue to put, people in harm’s way.”
Holmes had vowed to revolutionize well being diagnostics with self-service machines that might run an array of exams on only a few drops of blood, however the firm collapsed following Wall Street Journal reporting in 2015 that exposed the machines didn’t work as promised.
Key buyers in the startup included the Safeway grocery chain and the Walgreens chain of pharmacies, in addition to former US Secretary of State George Shultz.
Holmes’ attorneys, in their very own submitting, insisted that no function can be served by her incarceration — saying she posed no hazard, readily acknowledged her errors and had not materially benefited from the fraud — however that if the court docket selected jail time it shouldn’t exceed 18 months.
The rival filings got here simply days after a federal decide rejected Holmes’s request for a brand new trial following her conviction in January for defrauding buyers.
Holmes’ start-up drew high-profile backers and made her a billionaire on paper by the age of 30.
In 2015, Forbes journal named Holmes the nation’s richest self-made feminine billionaire, however a 12 months later the journal revised her estimated internet price to zero.
A California jury discovered Holmes responsible of 4 counts of tricking buyers.
Sentencing is scheduled for November 18.
Source: AFP
