CNN
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Elizabeth Holmes tried to “flee the country” by booking a ticket to Mexico departing in January 2022, shortly after the Theranos founder was convicted of fraud, prosecutors said in a new court filing Friday.
Holmes was convicted last January of defrauding investors while running a failed blood test for Theranos. In November, he was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. He has appealed his sentence.
Allegations that he tried to leave the country last year appeared as part of prosecutors’ filing that Holmes should begin serving time in prison instead of a $13,000-a-month facility to support him while he awaits an appeal.
In the filing, prosecutors say Holmes has not shown conclusive evidence that he is not a flight risk, as his lawyers have claimed, and used the alleged incident in 2022 to support their concerns that he could be such a risk.
“The State became aware on January 23, 2022, that Agent Holmes had booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, with no return trip,” the court said. “When the government boarded this illegal flight with security advisers and the trip was cancelled.”
The writing adds that the critics he hopes Holmes will “answer that he didn’t leave the country as planned” but said it’s “hard to know for sure” what he would have done “had the government not intervened.” Now, after being sentenced, prosecutors say “the motivation to escape has never been higher” and Holmes “has the means to do what he encourages.”
Holmes’ attorney did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on Friday’s filing.
The court documents include an email from one of Holmes’ lawyers to the prosecution, saying the travel bookings were made before the verdict. In the email, Holmes’ lawyer said the former Theranos CEO hoped the ruling would be different and that he would be able to attend a friend’s wedding in Mexico.
In previous court hearings, Holmes’ lawyers had argued that he should be released from prison pending an appeal, saying he was not a flight risk or a threat to the community.
Holmes was ordered to surrender to prison on April 27, 2023.
“There are no two systems of justice – one for the rich and one for the poor – there is only one system of justice in this country,” prosecutors said in a filing. They say “under that plan, it’s time” for Holmes to answer for his crimes.
When it was valued at $9 billion, Theranos attracted high-profile investors and business partners with claims that it had developed the technology to test for various conditions using just a few drops of blood. The company fell into disarray after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 found that Theranos had only tested about a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its technology, and with questionable accuracy.
