Defense Denies Holmes Tried to Flee US After Conviction

UPDATE Jan 23, 2023 5:00 PM CST

Lawyers for Elizabeth Holmes ripped prosecutors Monday for accusing the Theranos founder of trying to flee the country. Her partner did book a trip to Mexico for the two to attend a wedding, the defense filing says, but that was before Holmes was convicted of felony fraud, the San Jose Mercury News reports. When the verdict was in, the lawyers wrote, the idea was dropped, and they said Holmes has never tried to leave. The filing accuses prosecutors of "recklessly" using "incomplete and provably inaccurate statements of fact in support of that accusation" in a court filing of their own. Anyway, the defense said, the court had possession of Holmes' passport, which has expired.

Jan 20, 2023 2:41 PM CST

Elizabeth Holmes tried to escape her troubles when she was convicted of felony fraud a year ago, prosecutors say in a new court filing, by buying a one-way plane ticket out of the country. "Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip," the filing says, per SiliconValley.com. Billy Evans, Holmes' partner, flew out of the US on a one-way ticket that same day, though he returned six weeks later. A federal judge imposed her a prison sentence of more than 11 years in November.

The filing was an answer to a defense effort to postpone imprisonment until Holmes exhausts all appeals. Holmes has been free all along, the defense argued, so "the Court has already found that Ms. Holmes is not a flight risk." The motion says that the Theranos founder has surrendered her passport and notes that, plane ticket or no, she hasn't left the country yet. But with imprisonment on the horizon for Holmes, prosecutors wrote, "her incentive to flee has never been higher."

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Prosecutors objected to another aspect of Holmes' post-conviction life: the $13,000-per-month estate where she's living. Insider saw financial statements Holmes provided probation officers, which say her partner pays the bills though his salary as listed as $0. The $13,000 figure is what Holmes listed on the documents as the monthly cost to maintain the estate. Holmes shows no remorse for cheating Theranos investors, prosecutors wrote, saying she must "answer for her crimes committed nearly a decade ago" and report to prison. As of now, her term is to begin on April 27, 2023. (More Elizabeth Holmes stories.)