Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes remains free (for now) after last-minute appeal
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Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was set to report to prison for an 11-year-plus term Thursday -- but she'll be free for at least a little while longer.
A last-minute appeal by Holmes' legal team sought to undo the order for her to surrender Thursday while she played out an appeal of her conviction for defrauding investors in Theranos (THERA), the blood-testing start-up that famously imploded.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila had ruled earlier in April that Holmes should head to prison while pursuing the appeal of her conviction, which could take a year to resolve. Holmes' team had argued her appeal would raise "substantial questions" and even spur a new trial, and that she should remain free to care for two young children, including a newborn.
Davila concluded earlier this month that it wasn't likely that she could get her conviction overturned, and that she should report to prison in the meantime.
Holmes has now routinely appealed that decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning an automatic delay in her surrender until that court can rule. That decision is due no later than Friday, May 5.
Holmes' ex-boyfriend and former Theranos Chief Operating Officer Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani had received his own fraud conviction in a separate trial -- and had delayed his own prison entry with an appeal. But Balwani reported to prison in California to begin serving a 13-year-plus sentence last week.
The 39-year-old Holmes had been sentenced in November to a term of 11.25 years in federal prison.