Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and she didn’t steal any money for personal gain. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years.
Based on what we know so far about Caroline’s misuse (abuse) of funds and possible mass market manipulation all of which has resulted in billions of dollars in investor losses. 10 years in this case seems light, no?
Not that this is the right forum to re-try her case, but I'm actually shocked she got 11 years and I might even argue that is far more than she deserves if she was acquitted on the patient side. The problem appears that these statutes are based on dollar amounts of the fraud -- $140 million according to https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/elizabeth-holmes-senten.... Yes that's a lot of money but the investors themselves, how many of them were really damaged in any meaningful way? A few billionaires -- DeVos, Murdoch, Walton -- lost many millions, but what is that, 2 or 3% of their net worth? I'm sure there are some less-wealthy people on the investor list as well but I'm guessing nobody got their life savings wiped out. Defrauding the public, as opposed to some very wealthy investors, seems like a lot more serious crime.
Eh disagree. Holmes got more than 10 years but she didn’t even try to profit by selling shares or borrowing against shares to buy a bunch of things. The scale of the financial fraud is enormous and on top of that they spent hundreds of millions of it on luxury items and influence peddling.
I remember reading an argument about Bernie Madoff: he'll spend the rest of his life in jail, but nobody can take away the 20 years when he was king of the world.
Holmes got half that. I wonder if they were worth it, or if she spent them dreading being found out.
> Elizabeth Holmes just spent two years delaying her prison date, and she (and her co-conspirator) will only serve a decade for stealing ten times as much.
They didn't steal. They raised money from investors based on lies and squandered it. Of course, some of the cash made it back into their pockets, but it's not like they pocketed the whole $900m they raised based on their falsehoods.
Madoff got a long sentence, but lets not forget that 'legal experts' were predicting a pretty long sentence for Elizabeth Holmes, too, based on federal formulas. It's optimistic at this early stage to legitimately expect SBF to get life behind bars.
Bernie Madoff ran a ponzi. He paid returns with other investor monies. Holmes ran a pure fraud. She put lives at risk with her tests. Potentially, peopled died. She deserves an extremely long and punitive jail sentence.
Elizabth Holmes committed fraud, endangered lives, and harassed whistle blowers (one spent over $400,000 in legal fees fighting with Theranos). She only got 11 years and 3 months. I would not be surprised if Sam Bankman-Fried also got a fairly short sentence.
Would society be any better off if she got 20 years vs 11 years (also accounting for the $300000 those 9 years would cost the government)? I guess read https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/elizabeth-holmes-sente... and see if it changes your mind. Her life is basically ruined with the only consolation being the fact that her husband is rich and I doubt any would be fraudster would repeat what she did if they knew they could get 11 years for it. I think there is a case to be made for penalizing some of the more calculated frauds, like there is a huge Medicare fraud problem and there'll be cases with loss amounts in the millions where people get 2-3 years which in my opinion is too low to have a deterrent effect. But giving her any more just seems cruel and would ultimately just hinder whatever restitution she is supposed to make.
This is a pretty bold claim. Unwrapping the rhetoric, it sounds like you’re claiming that Holmes was given a harsher sentence because she’s a woman. However, the case is built on deliberate defrauding of investors to the tune of billions of dollars, if I understand it correctly. (I’ll admit to not paying close attention.) Do you have any examples of crimes of similar scope and how they were treated?
I agree, especially when you use the recent Shkreli case as a point of comparison. You have Shkreli who has been put away for 7 years for a hypothetical 10mil, yet Holmes commits "massive fraud", possibly losing 100's of millions of investors' money, and most likely gets away with a 600,000 fine and no jail time.
It seems the settlement of a $500k for Holmes was rather weak justice and sends the wrong message. With the kind of fraud she perpetuated to investors jail time would be more appropriate.
Sorry to be harsh but you have no idea what you're talking about. Holmes was famously not found guilty of defrauding patients, only defrauding investors.
SBFs fraud totals were much, much higher than Holmes, and the federal sentencing guidelines indicate he'll be going to jail for much longer.
Not that I don't think Elizabeth Holmes deserves this sentence, but when was the last time you heard about an investor get sentenced to a decade in prison for saying they'd make valuable introductions (or whatever) as part of the investment process and then not following through?
If it matters how rich the investors she defrauded actually are, perhaps she should get just a few months in jail:
"Notably, Theranos’ investors weren’t the usual-suspect venture capital firms. Rather, her funding came from individuals like former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the Walton family, among other wealthy elites. Some evidence showed that these investors were willing to give Theranos money even when Holmes evaded their more probing questions."
If anyone truly deserves a very long prison sentence it is Elizabeth Holmes. I think we're about to confirm what we've always known and that has been apparent since the start of this case. That rich white people, even if they got their money by taking advantage of others are pretty immune from harsh punishment in the criminal justice system.
Based on what we know so far about Caroline’s misuse (abuse) of funds and possible mass market manipulation all of which has resulted in billions of dollars in investor losses. 10 years in this case seems light, no?
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