In court docket on Friday, Jeffrey Schenk, an assistant U.S. legal professional and a lead prosecutor on the case, criticized Ms. Holmes’s argument that Theranos’s failure was typical of a high-risk, bold Silicon Valley start-up. “It’s a logical fallacy to counsel that start-ups fail, Theranos was a start-up, and due to this fact, Theranos failed as a result of it was a start-up,” he mentioned. “That’s not true.”
Mr. Schenk mentioned Ms. Holmes destroyed the belief between “innovators and traders” in Silicon Valley. He added that Ms. Holmes’s offense was not a single unhealthy act, like insider buying and selling primarily based on a tip, however an prolonged fraud that occurred over a few years. Prosecutors additionally in contrast her case to main frauds of the previous, together with the vitality buying and selling firm Enron and the long-distance telephone firm Worldcom, whose chief executives each spent greater than a decade in jail.
Kevin Downey, a lawyer for Ms. Holmes, mentioned in court docket that as a result of she by no means cashed out her Theranos inventory, there was no proof of greed, like yachts, planes, massive mansions and events. Lumping Ms. Holmes in with executives at Enron and Worldcom didn’t match her underlying habits, he mentioned.
“Now we have a conviction for a criminal offense the place the defendant’s motive was to construct know-how,” he mentioned.
Asking for leniency, Ms. Holmes submitted greater than 100 letters of help from figures together with Stanford professors, enterprise capital traders and Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat of New Jersey, which painted her as a virtuous one who was a sufferer of circumstances.
Ms. Holmes might be assigned to a jail by the Federal Bureau of Prisons primarily based on elements similar to location, area, her lack of legal historical past and the nonviolent nature of her crime. Minimal safety prisons nearest to Ms. Holmes’s residence in Woodside, Calif., embody Federal Correctional Establishments in Dublin.