Elizabeth Holmes gives birth to second child ahead of 11-year jail sentence in Theranos scam

Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos - a blood-testing technology company - in 2003, when she was 19. On January 3, 2022, she was found guilty on four charges of fraud. (Illustration: Moneycontrol)

Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes gave birth to her second child as her lawyers fight to delay her imprisonment. The founder and former CEO of Theranos has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her Silicon Valley start-up firm.

Holmes’ legal team gave the first public acknowledgment that she had indeed given birth in a filing late last week but did not reveal when she gave birth, New York Post reported.

The birth disclosure was part of an ongoing tug-of-war between Elizabeth Holmes’s lawyers and federal prosecutors over her prison term which is slated to begin on April 27. The 39-year-old, who has appealed her conviction and sentence, faces more than 11 years in prison.

“Ms. Holmes has deep ties to the community. She is the mother of two very young children,” the court filing stated as reported by New York Post. “She has close relationships with family and friends, many who submitted letters at sentencing vouching for her good character; and she volunteers with a rape crisis and counseling organization.”

Holmes was visibly pregnant during a failed bid to throw out her conviction last November. Billy Evans, her fiancé and the father of her first child, had confirmed her pregnancy in a court filing.

The couple's first child was born in July 2021, months before she was convicted on multiple counts of fraud for lying to investors about Theranos's technology and finances. The company once drew a $9 billion valuation only to collapse after the Wall Street Journal revealed its machines couldn’t perform many functions that Holmes claimed.

Read more: Pregnant Elizabeth Holmes will not have to deliver her baby in prison

Elizabeth Holmes became a star of Silicon Valley when she said her now-defunct start-up was perfecting an easy-to-use test kit that could carry out a wide range of medical diagnostics with just a few drops of blood.

She sold investors on the idea that her invention would disrupt medical practice, replacing expensive lab tests with her cheap kits.

But prosecutors said Holmes knew her device was not producing accurate and reliable results, yet induced dozens of investors to contribute nearly one billion dollars, all without ever achieving meaningful revenue.

Read more: Who is Sunny Balwani, former Theranos COO sentenced to 13 years in prison