Lawyers for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes argued in a court filing Monday that she should not have to pay $250 a month in restitution to defrauded investors upon her release from prison, citing her “limited financial resources.”
The complaint from Holmes’ attorneys follows a filing from federal prosecutors last week stating that because of “clerical errors,” the court never set a restitution payment for her for after she finishes her prison sentence. The court only ordered for Holmes to pay $25 per quarter while she’s imprisoned and earning meager hourly wages.
Attorneys for Holmes, whose startup touted a breakthrough in blood-testing technology, argued that the court never attempted to set a post-prison restitution scheduled and suggested the $25 quarterly payments to investors she duped should continue after her release.
“Ms. Holmes’ Amended Judgment already includes a restitution schedule that begins while she is incarcerated,” they wrote. “There is no indication in the record that the absence of a change to the schedule after she is released was a clerical error.”
They also argued that the court has already acknowledged that Holmes is less financially sound than former Chief Operating Officer Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was also sentenced to prison for lying to investors about the effectiveness of Theranos’ blood-testing machines. Together, the two have been ordered to pay back $452 million in restitution.
“Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani have different financial resources and the Court has appropriately treated them differently. For example, while the Court imposed a $25,000 fine on Mr. Balwani, it ‘reviewed [Ms. Holmes’] financial statements’ and declined to impose a fine,” her lawyers said.
Balwani’s judgment orders him to pay $1,000 a month in restitution once he’s released from prison.
Holmes is in a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, serving 11.5 years. Inmates in federal prison must serve at least 85% of their sentence, meaning Holmes will be imprisoned for a minimum of nearly 10 years. Balwani was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison.
Holmes is married to Billy Evans, an heir to a luxury hospitality group based in San Diego. The pair met in the midst of her legal woes in 2017, married in 2019 and have since had two children together.