Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison on Friday.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
The founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, told a judge she was “devastated” by her failings.
Holmes also apologized to a judge at her sentence hearing before being ordered to serve 11 years.
The disgraced former chief executive said she felt “deep pain” for failing people.
Elizabeth Holmes, who founded the failed blood testing company Theranos, said she was “devastated” by her own failings before she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
She apologized to Theranos customers on Friday before a judge, who heard her statement in a sentencing hearing in San Jose, California.
“I am devastated by my failings,” she said. “Every day for the past few years I have felt deep pain for what people went through because I failed them.”
Holmes, 38, who is pregnant with her second child, also said she “loved Theranos” and that she took responsibility for the company.
The former chief executive was given an 11.25 year prison sentence on Friday with three years of supervised release after she was convicted of four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy in January.
Her former boyfriend and business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was convicted of 12 charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in July.
Friends and family of Holmes begged for a lighter sentence and her legal defense team submitted 130 letters from them in a bid to win an 18-month sentence.
At the time of her conviction, jurors decided that Holmes knew Theranos’ blood-testing devices didn’t actually work, but she continued to pitch them to venture capitalists and investors regardless.
Homes’ fall from grace started when The Wall Street Journal published an explosive report detailing how the Theranos blood-testing machines did not work as claimed and created inaccurate results as well as revealing that it was secretly using competitors’ devices.
Holmes will begin her sentence on April 27, 2023.