Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the morning of April 27, Beijing time, it was reported that Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of US blood test company Theranos, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud. A judge ordered her to serve her sentence from Thursday, but according to the latest report, Holmes filed a last-minute appeal and will not report to prison this week.

On Tuesday, local time, Holmes' legal team appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, which means Holmes can temporarily rely on bail to maintain his personal freedom, according to the court process.

Holmes, 39, has two children. The first child was born before her fraud trial began in 2021, and the second child was born after a court verdict in November last year.

Last year, a federal grand jury in San Jose, California, filed charges against Holmes on four counts of defrauding investors around the failed blood test company Theranos. Last November, Federal District Court Judge Edward Davila (Edward Davila) sentenced Holmes to 11 years and three months in prison. The defendant's legal team filed a judicial motion in the hope that Holmes could enjoy personal freedom during the period of bail and appeal.

But earlier this month, Judge Davila rejected the defendant's motion to report to prison on April 27.

In the latest appeal, Holmes lawyers said there were many inexplicable errors in Judge Davila's decision. For example, previous charges that Holmes cheated patients at the blood test company were later dropped, but the verdict still mentions fraud.

The lawyers said Holmes should continue to enjoy personal freedom during the appeal process because the appeal could lead to the overturning of Davila's verdict.

Us prosecutors have 10 days to respond to Holmes's latest appeal.

Holmes has always wanted to continue to enjoy personal freedom, which is firmly opposed by federal prosecutors. In January, federal prosecutors said Holmes might be at risk of escaping her sentence, such as booking an one-way ticket to Mexico before the judge's final decision.

At the trial, Davila supported the defense lawyers' argument that the purchase of Mexican air tickets was a personal negligence and not an escape, but Davila believed that Holmes's future appeal was unlikely to overturn the verdict.

Tuesday's appeal saved Holmes from going to prison for a while, but it may only be temporary.

Last year, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, Holmes's personal adviser and ex-boyfriend, was sentenced to prison in a separate prosecution and trial. He hoped to maintain his freedom during the appeal. After the application was rejected by Judge Davila, Bavani appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but within three weeks, the appeals court rejected his application.

Last week, the 57-year-old Bavani reported to a low-security federal prison in Los Angeles for a 13-year sentence.

In the appeal, the lawyers pointed out that Holmes did believe that the company's blood test technology (which can detect many diseases) was effective and that she did not deliberately mislead investors about the test.

According to the appeal, authoritative scientists at Theranos told Holmes that the blood test technology invented by the company was indeed effective, and the same view was expressed by outsiders who had evaluated the technology. Theranos's groundbreaking blood test technology has won many patents.

Holmes lawyers said that US federal prosecutors only repeated some of the news reports. It is reported that in 2015, Holmes was exposed to intentional fraud against the blood test technology.

The appeal challenges Judge Davila's decision, including the use of evidence and witnesses, such as having a Theranos lab director testify as an "expert witness". This week, the American Association of Criminal Defense lawyers filed a document supporting Holmes's appeal.

The association pointed out that in the Holmes case, United States prosecutors abused the "expert eyewitness" rule, and that such abuse has become a trend.

Brian Goldman, a US lawyer, commented that it was regrettable that it was becoming more and more common for US prosecutors to abuse the expert witness rule, after prosecutors had already violated some rules and blurred the boundary between expert witnesses and ordinary witnesses.

By May 3, prosecutors can think about how to respond to Holmes's appeal.

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