Holmes is accompanied by her family and her partner to the court in California, tonight (Photo: Reuters)
A California court tonight (Saturday) sentenced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to 11 years and three months for defrauding investors in her blood testing startup, which was previously valued at $9 billion.
Forbes named Holmes the world's youngest billionaire in 2014, when she was 30, and her stake in Theranos was worth $4.5 billion.
District Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to three counts of defrauding investors, and one count of conspiracy.
This, after a jury convicted Holmes, 38, in January after a three-month trial.
Holmes, dressed in a dark shirt and black skirt, hugged her parents and her partner after the sentencing.
During the hearing, Holmes cried and said she was "devastated" by her failures and that she would have done many things differently if she had had the chance.
"I felt deep shame for what people went through because I failed them," she said.
An illustration of Holmes from the courtroom, tonight (Photo: Reuters)
Before sentencing, Davila called the case "disturbing on so many levels," and asked what motivated Holmes, a "brilliant" entrepreneur, to misrepresent her company to investors.
"This is a case of fraud where an exciting venture moved forward with great expectations only to be shattered by lies, misrepresentations, simple hubris and falsehoods," he said.
The judge set Holmes' incarceration date for April.
Her lawyers are expected to ask the judge to allow her to remain free on bail during her appeal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Schenck told the judge before sentencing that a 15-year sentence would be "a statement that the ends do not justify the means."
Holmes' attorney, Kevin Downey, asked that Holmes be confined to her home, saying Because leniency is justified because, unlike someone who committed a "major crime," she was not motivated by greed.
Prosecutors said at trial that Holmes misrepresented Theranos' technology and finances, including by claiming that its tiny blood-testing machine was able to run an array of tests from a few drops of blood.
According to prosecutors, the company secretly relied on conventional machines from other companies to run tests on patients.
Holmes testified in her own defense, saying she believed her statements were accurate at the time.
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