Deducing the Dual Reality of Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes is quite the talented performance artist.

She’s shown incredible versatility during her 2021 fraud trial and subsequent sentencing, assuming roles that were a dramatic departure from both herself and the Steve Jobs-like public persona she built through her Silicon Valley startup firm (Theranos).

Case in point: She was forthcoming in her witness stand debut, recounting her Stanford University background, her first patent application, and her business aspirations. When asked if she believed in her company’s revolutionary blood testing technology, Holmes replied simply, “I did.”

Holmes displayed extraordinary range on her third day of testimony. In a classic case of responsibility diffusion, the former business wunderkind blamed her company’s downfall on those with more corporate management experience (board members) and more knowledge about Theranos products than she did (the scientists and laboratory experts). Holmes refuted the testimony of former lab director Dr. Adam Rosendorff, who contended he felt pressured to vouch for tests for which he lacked confidence. She also said she was not qualified to approve blood tests.

Holmes professed ignorance about Theranos’s technology as well, yet gave detailed technical descriptions of the machines used to develop blood tests and scientific explanations of the problems Theranos encountered with its devices.

Worthy of a standing ovation.

Not long after assigning blame for her entrepreneurial shortcomings, Holmes professed regret. She admitted adding drug company logos to Theranos’s pharmaceutical validation reports to pursue a deal with Walgreens. “This work was done in partnership with those companies and I was trying to convey that,” she testified. “I wish I had done it differently.”

No performance would be complete, however, without an emotional breakdown, and Holmes truly delivered in that regard—she wept while sharing painfully vivid memories of alleged abuse by her former lover and business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.

Holmes certainly was a convincing impersonator during her seven-day stint on the witness stand. She was, at different times, sorrowful, regretful, frustrated, sagacious, and transparent.
But never apologetic. Or accountable.

“Defendant continues to show no remorse to her victims,” federal prosecutors wrote in a Jan. 19 filing. “Defendant ‘never fully appreciated [s]he would be incarcerated’ based on ‘ill-founded hopes the Court would give [her] a probationary sentence.’ Moreover, defendant has never ‘demonstrated..in [her] words or manner, a genuine acceptance that [s]he stole a significant amount of money from [investors] by lying and falsifying documents.’”

Indeed, Holmes has not yet accepted the reality of her circumstances; otherwise, she wouldn’t be living a lavish lifestyle (on an estate whose monthly expenses exceed $13,000) and have considered fleeing the United States mere weeks after her conviction on federal fraud charges, prosecutors allege. In its response to Holmes’ latest legal salvo—remaining free while appealing her prison term—the U.S. government deemed the soon-to-be mother of two a flight risk based on her requests to venture outside northern California (supposedly, for her husband’s work), and the one-way airline ticket to Mexico still in her possession early last year.

The government became aware of the ticket three days before the flight’s scheduled departure on Jan. 26, 2022. Holmes cancelled the trip only after the government questioned her attorneys about it, prosecutors claim. “The government anticipates Defendant will … reply that she did not in fact leave the country as scheduled but it is difficult to know with certainty what Defendant would have done had the government not intervened.”

She wouldn’t have done anything, according to defense attorneys. In a Jan. 24 response to the government’s accusations, Holmes’ legal team said its client’s husband (Billy Evans) booked flights in December 2021 to attend the wedding of close friends. Once the jury returned its verdict (Jan. 3, 2022), Holmes did not intend to make the trip.

“The government’s newfound claim that Ms. Holmes attempted to flee is baseless,” the defense’s latest court filing states. “If the government thought she had, the Court, Pretrial Services, and Probation Office would have heard she was a flight risk during the three years prior to trial and the year since Ms. Holmes’ conviction. The Court has Ms. Holmes’ passport, which has been expired for years. She is in frequent contact with multiple pretrial services officers. She has a flawless pretrial services record. None of these are markers of someone trying to make an escape.”

Maybe not, but it nevertheless illustrates the false sense of reality in which the disgraced CEO lives. She is scheduled to surrender to authorities on April 27 to begin serving her 135-month prison term for defrauding investors of at least $120 million. Balwani is supposed to begin his 155-month incarceration on March 15, two days before Holmes learns whether she can remain free while appealing her detention.

If past court decisions are any indication, time may not be on Holmes’ side. The government is keen on ensuring she finally begins her penance: “There are not two systems of justice—one for the wealthy and one for the poor—there is one criminal justice system in this country. And under that system, the time has come for Elizabeth Holmes to answer for her crimes committed nearly a decade ago…”
It’s time for Holmes to face the truth. And leave her reality behind.