The defense of disgraced biotech mogul Elizabeth Holmes, who once had an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, is opposing proposed changes to her case that include $250 monthly payments to victims.
In a filing in federal court in California, the team argued that implementing the restitution schedule proposed by prosecutors would amount to a significant modification of the outcome of Holmes’s fraud trial.
In November, Holmes, 39, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for misleading investors about the speed, convenience and capacity of high-tech blood tests being developed by Theranos, the Silicon Valley company that she directed.
The San Jose federal court found that she and Theranos COO Ramesh Balwani, convicted in a separate trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy, are responsible for covering up more than $452 million in investor losses.
Holmes is appealing the decision; Balwani has been unsuccessful in appealing against him.
Prosecutors filed a motion last Wednesday «to correct the sentences» that noted that the court’s latest amendment to the case included «clerical errors» including the absence of a restitution payment schedule.
The government’s lawyers proposed, among other things, adding a monthly payment schedule of at least $250 or 10% of his earnings, whichever is greater, depending on the filing.
They argued that is what the court «intended» by finding Holmes and Balwani liable for investor losses, according to the government filing.
«The government offers an educated guess as to what ‘the Court intended,'» the defense team said in its filing.
In the document, Holmes’s lawyers called the proposal an «attempt to fabricate a record that does not exist.»
Both sides appear to agree that the process allows for changes in restitution if a convict’s financial situation changes significantly, but Holmes’s team argues that the government has offered no evidence of such a change for Holmes.
In their filing on Monday, Holmes’s defense team said: «The Court had before it substantial evidence showing the limited financial resources of Ms. Holmes.»
Lawyers for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In May, Forbes, which once estimated Holmes to have a net worth of $4.5 billion, lowered his estimated net worth to $0. Before reporting to the Texas federal prison last month, he lived with his partner, Billy Evans, and their two young children in the San Diego area.
Evans is the grandson of the founders of a successful San Diego hotel group now run by his father. In 2021, CNBC reported that Holmes and Evans lived in a house on a $135 million estate in Woodside, California.
joseph cradduck contributed.