A federal court sentenced disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to more than 11 years in prison on Friday for defrauding investors in the failing firm that claimed to revolutionize blood testing but instead turned her into a symbol of Silicon Valley’s culture of bold self-promotion.
The term handed by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila was less than the 15-year sentence sought by federal prosecutors but considerably harsher than the leniency urged by her legal team for the mother of a year-old son with another kid on the way.
Holmes was convicted in January in the fraud, which focused on the company’s claims to have invented a medical gadget that could identify a variety of illnesses and disorders from a few drops of blood. However, the technology never functioned.
