After Elizabeth Holmes lost her last-ditch effort to overturn her 2022 fraud conviction by a federal appeals court on Monday, Feb. 24, the former Theranos founder responded to the decision from behind bars.
“I am more determined than ever to fight for my freedom,” Holmes says, writing via email from a federal prison in Texas. “And I know that when the truth finally comes out I will be proven innocent.”
Holmes, who founded the billion-dollar blood testing company at the age of 19 in 2003, was convicted of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud over the collapse of her company. She was convicted alongside her former business and romantic partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. The appeal of his conviction, which resulted in a prison sentence of 13 years, was also rejected in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco the same day. The two are still ordered to pay $452 million in restitution.
In the opinion filed in court last week, three judges ruled that the issues Holmes raised about her trial — and the grounds on which she sought her sentence be overturned — were not valid. The ruling bookends a years-long Silicon Valley drama over the blood testing startup that took the industry by storm with Holmes’ appeal and $9 billion Theranos valuation. The company collapsed after its testing technology was exposed as a failure, a scandal that inspired books like journalist John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, the Hulu limited series The Dropout and podcasts.
Related: Elizabeth Holmes’s Bid to Overturn Conviction Denied. Why Expert Believes It’s ‘End of the Road’ for Her
Now the 41-year-old mother of two small children, wears drab khaki prison garb, with her blonde hair pulled back, bare makeup and a silver cross around her neck— speaking in a voice notably softer than the throaty baritone she was known for.
“I’m not the same person I was back then,” said Holmes in PEOPLE’s February 2025 cover story, who pleaded not guilty at her trial and maintains her innocence today, albeit while vaguely acknowledging “there are things I would have done differently” on her path to lockup.
Related: Elizabeth Holmes Breaks Her Silence in First Interview from Prison: ‘It’s Been Hell and Torture’ (Exclusive)
“It’s surreal. People who have never met me believe so strongly about me. They don’t understand who I am. It forces you to spend a lot of time questioning belief and hoping the truth will prevail. I am walking by faith and, ultimately, the truth. But it’s been hell and torture to be here.”
Holmes began serving her 11-year sentence (reduced to nine for good behavior) in May 2023 at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, Texas. Her listed release date at the Federal Bureau of Prisons is currently March 19, 2032.
Holmes asked the court to toss out her conviction and grant a new trial, arguing that prosecutors presented key testimony during the four-month trial from Theranos’ final lab director that was “infected with error.”
Prosecutors used the lab director, Kingshuk Das, as a scientific expert on Theranos’ blood testing device called the Edison, but Holmes’ attorneys argued that he was never properly vetted by the judge as an expert.
The Justice Department countered that Das wasn’t providing an expert opinion, but rather testifying about what he saw at the company while he worked there and relayed to his boss Holmes at the time. The judges’ opinion held that the former employees spoke from their own experiences, and not as experts.
While “some aspects of the testimonies veered into expert territory,” read part of the opinion, “any error was harmless.”
The judges also dismissed Holmes’ claims that a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services report, which was presented in court during trial, misled the jury. Holmes also claimed the district court violated her rights when they denied her access to cross-examine, but the opinion held that limiting that access was justifiable.
Related: Elizabeth Holmes’s Bid to Overturn Conviction Denied. Why Expert Believes It’s ‘End of the Road’ for Her
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and attorney, told PEOPLE this denial likely dooms Holmes’s chances of having her conviction reversed.
“This is likely the end of the road for Holmes. She gets one appeal as of right, and this was it,” Rahmani said, adding that while there may be options for other appeals, “only a small percentage” of those result in even a hearing.
After her appeal was denied, prosecutors declined to comment to PEOPLE. Her defense has not responded for comment.
As for Holmes, she’s still processing the downfall that wiped away her entire fortune and she considers her trial and conviction in a San Jose courtroom in 2022 to be a miscarriage of justice.
“First it was about accepting it happened,” said Holmes about her relationship with Balwani to PEOPLE in February 2025. “Then it was about forgiving myself for my own part. [And] I refused to plead guilty to crimes I did not commit. Theranos failed. But failure is not fraud.”
Read the original article on People
