Elizabeth Holmes Ordered to Repay Rupert Murdoch $125 Million in Theranos Restitution, Totaling $452 Million
Theranos fraudsters Elizabeth Holmes and her ex-lover Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, who is also her former business partner, have been ordered to pay a total of $452 million in restitution out of which a whopping $125 million belongs to media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. In a decisive court judgment, Judge Edward Davila has ordered Holmes to repay Murdoch the entire $125 million that he invested in her "dubious" blood-testing start-up.
Holmes and Balwani “will be jointly and severally liable for this sum,” Judge Davila wrote in the filing. This means each could be "individually liable for the entire amount." According to The Independent, the judge has also ordered Holmes to begin her 11-year sentence, even as the ex-entrepreneur tried to overturn her conviction for fraud after a trial in San Jose, California, last year.
The restitution payment to the Fox Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch, is the largest ordered by Judge Davila. Next comes the RDV Corporation, which invested $100 million. The RDV manages assets for the DeVos family, which includes Amway cofounder, Richard DeVos and former US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Yahoo reports that Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich will get $4.1 million, Don Lucas' Lucas Venture Group is set to receive more than $7.5 million, and Walgreens and Safeway will receive $40 million and $14.5 million respectively.
The former biotechnology entrepreneur has been delaying her prison sentence, and according to CNN, she has requested the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to delay the sentence right before she was expected to report to prison last month. Holmes' re-appeal was rejected by Judge Davila who said, "Contrary to her suggestion that accuracy and reliability were central issues to her convictions, Ms Holmes' misrepresentations to Theranos investors involved more than just whether Theranos technology worked as promised."
Holmes had argued in court that she would raise "substantial questions" about her case that could warrant a new trial. She has now been ordered to turn herself in to the Bureau of Prisons by May 30 to begin her 11-year sentence for defrauding investors.
CNN reports that Sunny Balwani, the disgraced former COO of Theranos and Homes ex-boyfriend has already reported to prison last month to serve his 13-year sentence. Jeffrey Coopersmith, Balwani’s attorney informed via an email, “Mr Balwani turned himself in… smoothly without incident, we will continue to fight for him because we do not believe that he received a fair trial.”
Earlier this month, Holmes also alleged in a New York Times article that she had no money left to pay her legal fees. Her parents revealed that they borrowed $500,000 against their Washington, D.C. home to post her bond. When asked how she was paying her legal fees, Holmes said: "I can't. I have to work for the rest of my life to try to pay for it." Her first legal team had quit over non-payment of fees, and court documents estimate it to be around $30 million.
