Jan. 21 (UPI) — Convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes bought a one-way plane ticket to Mexico last year and remains a flight risk, prosecutors say in newly filed court documents.
Holmes was found guilty last year of defrauding investors in her once high-flying technology company and was sentenced to 11 years in prison in November.
She has been ordered to surrender to authorities to begin serving her sentence in April but has appealed, asking the court to delay the date.
Prosecutors opposed Holmes’ request in documents filed Friday, arguing that her ticket purchase established that she is a flight risk.
“The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip,” they said in the filing.
The flight was canceled, they said, “only after the government raised this unauthorized flight” with Holmes’ defense counsel.
Holmes currently lives at an estate requiring $13,000 per month in expenses, they alleged.
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, claiming she could streamline blood testing with a revolutionary device dubbed the “Edison.” The company’s value eventually rose to $6 billion.
She was lionized in 2014 Holmes as the youngest female self-made billionaire and the next year was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people.
That same year the Wall Street Journal published an investigation which revealed that the Edison device did not produce accurate results.
In 2018 Holmes settled a Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit by paying $500,000. Later that year she was criminally charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.