Big company bosses who got busted
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes gets two years knocked off 11-year prison sentence
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LIFESTYLE Crime
When you make it to the top, you might just think you're above the law. One second you're a big company boss, the next you're a criminal.
In the case of Elizabeth Holmes, she became a big company boss by breaking the law. Holmes shot to fame from 2010-2015 when she founded tech start-up Theranos. She claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods that could use impressively small amounts of blood—a drop from a simple pinprick of the finger. By 2015, Forbes had named her the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in America, based on a US$9-billion valuation of her company. But things soon went south.
Holmes and Theranos became the target of investigative journalists who began uncovering falsified data and potentially illegal business practices, which led to the company and its CEO being charged with fraud for deceiving investors through false or exaggerated claims about the accuracy of the company's blood-testing technology. In 2018 she was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for distributing blood tests with falsified results to consumers.
After a lengthy four-month trial, which included testimony from 37 witnesses, Holmes was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud at the beginning of 2022. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison and was due to begin her prison stint on April 27, though she was given an extension to sort out issues surrounding childcare for her two young children, one-year-old William and 3-month-old Invicta, whom she shares with partner Billy Evans. She began her 11-year sentence on May 30.
Now, however, it appears two years have been quietly shaved off her prison sentence, following a similar sentence reduction for co-conspirator Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Her revised release date suggests she will serve roughly nine years and seven months in prison, which Forbes said the Bureau of Prisons would not explain due to inmate “privacy, safety, and security.” Reduced sentences can be influenced by a range of factors like good behavior, disciplinary concerns, and jail-time credit.
There have been many bosses who have gotten busted on criminal charges. From Martha Stewart to the Wolf of Wall Street, crooked bosses have been around for a while now. Click through this gallery to meet some of the most infamous bosses ever.
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